Everyone’s breath held for a few seconds. Old Dyen seemed to be possessed by a mixture of hatred and pain while his dark wings, stemming from infernal laws, trembled. In his mind, there was no space or any will to escape. He had never been so humiliated before, and even with the curse causing more and more pain, he began to release his Qi without caring about anything else.
The space around Almin closed in, with the activated Qi of a cultivator from an entire realm above him. There shouldn’t be any escape or chance of victory, even if he were perfectly fine. But at that moment, Almin fought only to avoid passing out from exhaustion due to the lack of Qi.
In that instant, Ruri seemed on the verge of collapsing, and Langrum drew her black sword, ready to advance and fight; she wouldn’t allow herself to watch Almin die. Then, the voice of the whale resonated dryly.
"No need to move; this is his fight."
Langrum clenched the hilt of her sword and turned to the whale with eyes that were half angry, half pleading. Was he really going to let Almin die like this? she thought frantically.
But, in that second, she quickly turned back to the front. There was no more time to help. Old Dyen advanced with his spear in a deadly onslaught, and the smell of blood seemed to fill the air.
The air was brutally pierced with that advance. In Almin’s eyes, only seriousness and a firm, unyielding will were reflected. He did not cower or fear, and the blow came directly aimed at his heart.
CRACK!!
The sound of space distorting, along with the sound of bones breaking brutally, echoed everywhere. The less attentive could only see a blur advancing; then, a wave of dust covered everything.
In two seconds, the dust was swept away by the beating of dark wings. Soon, everyone could see old Dyen, and then they felt an even more intense hatred and humiliation coming from him. Further back, they saw a figure slowly rising...
Almin was trembling, leaning on his spear to stand again. His whole body was covered in blood, with several bones exposed. His left arm and leg were twisted in a strange shape, but in his eyes, there was no pain... just an emptiness that refused to give up. Everyone swallowed hard. Could this figure have survived a lethal blow, dodging at the last second? Is that even possible?
"A bit of luck combined with pure survival instinct, good move," the whale murmured to Ruri and Langrum, who were astonished. "The old man is out of his mind, and he just attacked in the most brutal and thoughtless way possible. Even an irrational beast attacks with some technique or strategy. But if Almin didn’t believe he could or had any fear, it would have been the end."
Almin stood up again and forced himself to slowly point his spear at Dyen. All spectators sighed in admiration; this will was irrational, but the old man wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
It was in that second that Dyen exploded again. This time, his power was fully focused. He managed to blur his mind from pain and attack, using his Qi to completely prevent Almin from evading.
A non-sharp thrust that seemed more like it wanted to kill a giant beast was unleashed. Almin kept his spear pointed forward, awaiting the clash, and his eyes gleamed without any desire to retreat.
Then, in a second, the spear tip was inches away from his heart. Langrum tightened her sword anxiously, and Ruri let out a muffled cry of lament. But the result they expected did not happen... nothing happened... everyone immediately became incredulous and perplexed.
Old Dyen still held his spear an inch from Almin’s heart. However, he was completely frozen and trembling, unable to move.
It was at that moment that an extremely ancient elder looked up and muttered in astonishment, kneeling. "Greetings, Patriarch!"
With these words, everyone seemed to have received a shock and knelt, joining in a chorus with the same words spoken by the elder.
The whale sighed unsurprisingly. First, they noticed that none of the disciples who took the test returned to watch the fight from afar, finding it strange because that was a very attractive bloody spectacle for evil cultivators. Then, in the midst of the exchange of blows between the old man and Almin, Alm and Bruno felt a hidden gaze from above.
As the fight reached a desperate climax, they already had some ideas of what happened for the patriarch to be acting directly. Now, the whale sinisterly smiled with confirmation: these elders who were helping Dyen and Dyen himself had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
In the center of the fight, after a few seconds, old Dyen stepped back a few steps in fear and knelt, trying to control the pain he felt from the curse. In the same second, all the other fallen elders around fell silent and forced themselves to kneel, imitating Dyen.
Then, lightly, the patriarch descended from the heavens with a cold and furious expression. Everyone, from afar, had glimpsed the patriarch a few times, and he always remained serious and calm, but at this moment, everyone trembled. The patriarch was clearly in the midst of a fury completely out of the ordinary.
A light but stern voice resonated. "You really are tired of living. How dare you interfere and disrupt the disciples’ test..." With his last words, his voice seemed to tremble, and suddenly, the whole city felt a heavy hammer fall on their chests.
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Dyen and all the elders trembled violently, being the focus of all the patriarch’s fury, then bowed even more on the ground, completely subdued and fearful.
"Do you know how many resources the sect burned to bring so many disciples to the prison? I personally interrogated the disciples; they all reported spending every second inside the prison hiding and avoiding making any moves instead of cultivating."
The patriarch’s voice was still light, but everyone felt the smell of blood becoming even stronger in the air, rising along with his growing anger.
"You invaded the second level of the prison where the disciples were supposed to cultivate. From the first hour to the end, you furiously swept through the entire place, killing infernal beasts in search of something."
"At first, I thought something unusual had happened, as there were also reports of strange phenomena. But now it seems it was something personal and foolish..."
As soon as the elders failed to capture the whale’s group, they swept through all places on the second level in search of them. It didn’t cross their minds that they would be suicidal enough to go to the next level. Only a few hours before the end of the test did they decide to leave and wait outside. But this event, combined with the apocalyptic phenomena caused by the whale, was a combination that made no one want to take risks, and they just waited for the end in safety. It was a gigantic waste for the sect and for the disciples.
The patriarch clenched his fist, seeming like he might turn all the elders into a blood paste at any second. But he took a deep breath and continued.
"An entire day of cultivation in the prison by hundreds of disciples was thrown in the trash, along with an exuberant amount of sect resources. Not even your heads are valuable enough to pay this debt."
"But you were lucky... very lucky." A faint dreadful smile appeared on the lips of the elf. "The patriarch of the Bloodthirsty Light Sect offered a good amount of resources a few hundred years ago in exchange for a simple request."
At this moment, all thirteen elders lifted their faces from the ground in total despair, almost as if tears were flowing from their eyes. In the crowd, some elders sighed, trembling slightly; they knew very well what awaited those poor elders, and just thinking about it, a cold sweat ran down their backs.
"Don’t worry, I’ll ensure that none of you die. The patriarch of the Bloodthirsty Light Sect will be very pleased to slowly suck the blood and essence from you to give life to his new weapon."
A strange laughter from the patriarch echoed; he was a handsome elf, but Ruri saw the true, terrifying face of this evil cultivator. "You will be leased for 500 days. And all your belongings will be confiscated as punishment. Thus, you can repay the debt to the sect; if you want to kill yourselves, you’ll only have the chance after everything is over."
Then, with a motion from the patriarch, all thirteen elders were brutally lifted into the air, and black chains covered their bodies, giving ear-piercing screams of deep pain.
They were caught and judged without the chance for any response or defense. This was the law of that place, the strongest dictates the rules and does as they please. The weak have no right to any defense and can only thank their stars for not being killed.