novelraw Chapter 991: The Blood Sect Bleeds
Chapter 991: The Blood Sect Bleeds
Han Yu listened quietly to all the conversations when someone suddenly asked.
"Brother Ju Fan?" It was Daoist Swamp Leech.
All voices stopped.
Han Yu raised the token.
"Yes?"
"What do you think?"
Everyone waited.
Han Yu answered calmly.
"The enemy is intelligent."
"They adapt."
"They understand the sect."
"They target talent."
Silence.
The statement hit hard.
Because it was true.
Almost everyone who died had talent.
Future elites.
Future pillars.
Someone cursed.
"So this bastard wants to cripple the sect."
Han Yu stayed silent.
The discussion shifted.
People began listing names of the dead.
Promising disciples.
Heirs.
Talents.
Daoist Swamp Leech suddenly spoke softly.
"My junior brother died..."
The token quieted again.
"He was supposed to enter the Core Court next year."
No one answered. Whether it was the weight of the words, or the fact that Daoist Swamp Leech even had people close to him, it was hard to tell.
Even Daoist Blood Pool remained silent.
The atmosphere became heavy.
Meanwhile across the sect investigations deepened. Whole peaks underwent inspections, rooms searched, storage treasures checked and records examined. Every death replayed repeatedly through formation recordings.
Still nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
The hidden ancestors themselves had intervened and even then...
Nothing.
That terrified the sect most.
Because it implied the enemy remained hidden.
Somewhere.
Watching.
Waiting.
Han Yu sat quietly in his peak. Outside his window he could see blood light covering the skies. The giant sealing formation remained active. Patrol elders flew constantly overhead. The sect had become a fortress.
And yet...
He smiled inwardly.
Because fear had already won.
The disciples no longer trusted each other.
Masters watched students carefully.
Students feared peers.
Even elders suspected colleagues.
The foundations had begun cracking.
Far away beneath Heart Peak...
Deep underground...
Three old figures sat within darkness.
Their eyes slowly opened.
One spoke.
"The sect bleeds."
Another answered.
"The enemy hides well."
The third voice was colder.
"Find them."
"Before they reach the Legacy disciples."
Their eyes closed again.
Above them...
The entire Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect remained awake through the night.
No one slept peacefully anymore.
The lockdown continued as days became weeks, weeks turned into months, and the Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect remained sealed like a giant cage.
No disciple entered.
No disciple left.
The blood colored dome covering the sect never disappeared even once during those months. The formation remained active day and night, bathing the skies in a dim crimson glow that made the entire sect feel suffocating even more so than the Bleeding Moon ever did.
Investigations continued endlessly as peak after peak was searched, records were opened, treasury archives checked and disciples interrogated.
Soul examinations became routine.
And yet despite all of it... Nothing about the perpetrator was found.
Not even a shadow.
No curse.
No hidden art.
No suspicious inheritance.
Nothing.
The invisible enemy remained invisible.
Though while they failed to find the source behind the deaths, they ended up finding something else entirely.
Schemes.
Old schemes.
New schemes.
Half completed schemes.
Some belonged to disciple factions.
Others belonged to elders.
And some... Made even the Patriarch furious.
Normally such matters would have been quietly settled. A few merit points deducted, Some minor punishment, a warning, perhaps even a symbolic confinement. Politics existed everywhere after all.
No one expected purity from the Blood Sect.
Yet under the current atmosphere, things changed completely. The sect had become a powder keg and paranoia ruled everything.
Thus the punishments became severe.
Within the first month alone several disciple factions were uprooted after investigators found hidden dealings, resource manipulation, assassinations and bribery networks.
One Core Disciple faction had apparently spent over thirty years quietly siphoning cultivation resources from outer divisions through manipulated reports.
The entire group disappeared overnight.
Another faction belonging to Inner Court disciples had hidden a forbidden body refinement technique that sacrificed slaves.
All members were executed publicly.
Han Yu heard the news while eating candied spirit fruits and almost choked as he realized the sect had become ruthless even by its own standards.
The second month only became worse.
This time the investigations reached elder level.
Several old political struggles resurfaced.
Ancient grudges.
Old betrayals.
Records buried for centuries.
Peak Heads personally intervened.
The Patriarch himself inspected archives.
Within three months more schemes had been exposed than during the previous fifty years combined.
An elder from the Blood Beast Peak lost his position after hidden dealings were discovered. A Hall Master was confined after manipulating disciple evaluations. Two ancient factions that had fought secretly for generations were forced to dissolve.
Everyone became careful.
Disciples watched their words.
Elders avoided gatherings.
No one trusted anyone.
Han Yu watched it all from his personal peak.
Or more accurately... He was imprisoned there.
By his own master.
"Do not leave the peak."
Those had been the Second Kidney Peak Head’s exact words.
"Not even a step."
The old man had looked completely serious too. Han Yu suspected that if he tried leaving, his master would personally drag him back. The old man had already lost too many disciples over the centuries.
Ju Fan was now his greatest treasure.
There was no way he would risk him.
Han Yu did not mind.
Actually... He welcomed it.
His orders were suspended, workshop operations reduced and Most external duties stopped. The mirrors handled themselves and the Jiangshi production had already slowed years ago.
For the first time in what felt like forever... He had free time.
Real free time.
Thus Han Yu declared something shocking.
A vacation.
An entire month.
No cultivation.
No research.
No planning.
Nothing.
While the sect trembled every time someone sneezed... Han Yu laid lazily inside his residence.
He held a cup of wine in hand while a formation screen floating before him. He was watching old drama recordings Qing Luan had sent years ago, recordings he never had time to watch. Now he binged them shamelessly.
There were romance dramas.
Martial dramas.
Merchant dramas.
One was somehow about two rival alchemists arguing for eighty episodes.
Han Yu watched all of it.
And strangely... Enjoyed it.