"Hmm?"

The man looked slightly confused as he saw a Divine Blood Sect disciple rushing toward him in a hurry.

"Haa... Haa... Finally!"

The disciple panted heavily, clearly exhausted from the long journey.

"Want some wine?" The man smiled and offered him a cup, but the disciple quickly shook his head.

"N-No, I appreciate the offer, Lord Emissary, but I only came to deliver an urgent report."

The disciple took a cautious step back.

He wasn’t foolish enough to accept anything from this man.

Given his infamous reputation... being drugged was a very real possibility.

He only came here because he had no other choice.

"I see~"

The man wasn’t offended in the slightest.

He casually took a sip of the wine and leaned back lazily on his wooden chair.

"So, what brings a disciple of the ’Fool’ running all the way here in such a panic?"

The disciple’s expression stiffened at the mocking nickname, but he quickly composed himself.

He pulled out a small jade tablet from his robe.

"I came to inform you that the Eleventh Emissary, The Blood Moon’s life jade has cracked. We believe he is most likely—"

"Dead." the man finished casually, swirling the red wine in his cup.

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned. "I already knew. We can sense each other’s life and death."

The Divine Blood Sect’s Emissaries shared a special connection that allowed them to detect whether one of their own was alive or dead.

The purpose was simple: if one fell, the others could rush over to avenge them.

However, in reality, none of them ever did.

To the Emissaries, the others were not comrades... they were rivals.

With one gone, there was simply one less competitor for the throne.

The disciple wasn’t surprised by the casual reaction.

He already knew how cold-blooded the Emissaries were.

Since he was only here to deliver the report, he simply continued.

"And it seems the Eleventh Emissary stirred up trouble inside the Righteous Sects’ territory. The Sword Saint has now issued a hunting decree. He has even dispatched the Demon Slaying Squad and the first sect to suffer was the Devil Yin Sect, which is closest to the Lawless Land border. One of their Nascent Soul Elders was severely injured in the clash so they are urgently requesting our intervention—"

"Ignore them~" the man said with a lazy smile. "The Sword Saint’s hunting decree won’t affect us much. In fact, it will benefit us greatly. It will force those neutral demonic sects to submit to us faster."

He opened his mouth and let one of his consorts feed him a piece of fruit, licking his lips with satisfaction.

"I even have a few handsome men in mind that I want to claim as new consorts from those sects. So the Sword Saint better do a good job this time~"

The disciple nodded and flipped to the next page of his report.

"And regarding the sects that have recently come under the Divine Blood Sect’s influence, we have—"

"...Wait a minute."

The man suddenly cut him off and slowly sat up straight on the wooden chair.

He gave the disciple a strange, puzzled look.

"Why are you reporting all of this to me?" 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

He was indeed a high-ranking Emissary, but there was no rule requiring him to act as the leader of the sect or make decisions for everyone.

Hearing the question, the disciple’s face twisted.

The exhaustion and suffering of the past few days resurfaced as he nearly broke down.

"Because I couldn’t find anyone else..." he said bitterly. "I’ve already gone through fifty-two of your manors... and I only managed to find you today."

"Eh?"

Seeing the man’s confused look, the disciple gave a wry, helpless smile.

"You might not know this, Lord Emissary, but the Sect Leader has gone into seclusion. There’s no one currently available to approve major projects or decisions."

Hearing this, the man gave him another strange look.

"Then what about the Grand Elders? Don’t tell me they’re all in seclusion as well?"

The disciple let out a tired sigh.

"No, but it’s even worse. Venerable Centipede refuses to come out of his lair no matter what, and Venerable Realmwalker is... missing as usual. As for the other Venerables, they’re all occupied in distant lands with their own affairs. It’s impossible for me to reach them in time."

The man nodded slowly.

With the Sect Leader in seclusion and the Grand Elders unreachable, it seemed the responsibility of managing the sect’s affairs had fallen onto the shoulders of the Emissaries.

But he wasn’t the highest-ranking one, so why...?

As if reading his thoughts, the disciple continued.

"The First Emissary, the Chosen One, has been missing for nearly thirty years now. His whereabouts are still unknown."

"Meanwhile, The Second Emissary, the Lone Harbinger, is currently hunting down a remnant immortal. It would be disastrous to interrupt him... And the Third Emissary, the Devourer, is busy preparing for an expedition to hunt a Divine Beasts. Besides... none of them seem interested in handling ordinary sect affairs."

The man rolled his eyes.

’Heh, I don’t care either~’

Still, he asked, "What about your master? The Fourth Emissary... the Fool of a Thousand Faces?"

The moment the question left his mouth, he realized how foolish it was.

...After all, no one had ever truly seen that person’s real appearance.

The disciple smiled bitterly.

"...I don’t even know what my master looks like."

Probably only the Sect Leader knew the true identity of the Fourth Emissary.

After considering everything, it really seemed the burden of making decisions had fallen onto him.

He could understand why the Second and Third Emissaries were unavailable, and he had long since given up trying to make sense of the mysterious Fourth... but the First Emissary was different.

That one....

He had never truly understood his thoughts or his actions.

The man cupped his forehead, clearly annoyed by the sudden influx of responsibility.

But then the disciple continued his report.

"And the Tenth Emissary, the Prince of the Night, along with the Ninth Emissary, the Twisted Harmony, have already set out toward the Golden Light Monastery."

Hearing this, the man paused slightly, his brows knitting together.

Of the Five Major Sects of the righteous path, the Golden Light Monastery was the most secluded and, according to the Sect Master words... also the most troublesome.

From what he knew, the monastery possessed a deep heritage, along with ties to powerful faction in the Central Continent.

Facing powerhouses from the Central Continent this early was... too risky as their plans were still in the initial phase.

Yet even so, the deployment of those two Emissaries suggested this was not meant to be a direct confrontation as he understood their abilities well enough.

’They must have gone to free the "Enlightened One" then~’

Once that existence was released, the strongest pillar of the righteous path would collapse from within.

He leaned back slightly, only half-listening as the report continue on—

"Oh, and apparently, a mysterious plague has appeared in one of the dynasties under the Azure Moon Sect’s territory."

This time, the disciple hesitated.

"...Judging from the intelligence we’ve gathered, it seems similar to one of Venerable Desireless’s creations."

Those words made him paused, as a flicker of interest surfaced in his eyes because Venerable Desireles...

was... dead.

And he just so happened to know... who had killed him.

A slow smile crept across his lips.

"Hahaha... this is getting interesting~"

_

_

_

At the same time, inside the capital of the Fen Dynasty...

Thick, choking smoke hung low over the city like a funeral shroud.

The sky, once a clear blue, had now turned a sickly gray... as if even the heavens had turned their face away.

The air reeked of burnt flesh and decay... a heavy rot stench that clung to the back of the throat and refused to leave.

Along the wide stone streets, commoners could be seen moving like ghosts.

Many had tied ragged cloths around their lower faces, their eyes hollow and red from smoke and exhaustion as they currently carried corpses.... victims of the strange plague that had appeared only a week ago.

"Move! We need to burn these cursed bodies before it spreads further!" a burly guard roared, his voice hoarse from days of shouting.

His armor was smeared with ash, his face tired and sleepless.

He stood beside a large wooden cargo cart already overflowing with corpses, stacked carelessly atop one another.

Limbs pressed at unnatural angles beneath the cloth, some hanging loosely off the edge as the cart creaked under the weight.

Suddenly one of the people carrying the corpse in group stumbled on the uneven road.

He went down hard, and the corpse slipped from their grasp, hitting the ground with a heavy, wet thud as the cloth unraveled on impact.

For a moment, everything seemed to pause because the body exposed beneath was... wrong.

The corpse ’s skin had turned completely black, not bruised, not burned... but something deeper, like the color had been drained and replaced with rot.

His lips had shriveled back, revealing teeth stained dark as ink... as it parted in a silent, agonized scream.

Even the whites of his eyes were gone, replaced by a murky, lifeless black.

Thin red cracks spread across his entire body, branching like fractures in dry earth.

Some of them oozed slowly, thick and dark, as if whatever was inside him had begun to leak out.

A sharp breath rippled through the nearby workers.

"Damn it!" the guard snapped, immediately stepping forward. "Don’t just stand there! Pick it up!"

He grabbed one end of the corpse without hesitation, though his jaw tightened the moment his hand made contact through the cloth.

Even through the fabric, the body felt... off as the body was too rigid in some places, too soft in others.

The others quickly scrambled to help, their earlier hesitation replaced by urgency.

No one wanted to be near it longer than necessary.

They wrapped it up again and heaved it back onto the cart as the pile shifted slightly to accommodate it.

A hand slipped out from beneath another corpse, dangling lifelessly over the edge but no one fixed it.

"Move!" the guard ordered again, stepping back and waving them on.

Clack...

Clack...

Clack...

The wooden wheels began to turn, slow and strained under the weight of the overloaded cart.

Each heavy rotation echoed against the stone streets like a grim countdown.

It joined a long procession of similar carts ahead, all moving in the same sorrowful direction... toward the pits outside the capital wall.

Those were not ordinary pits.

They were massive trenches hastily dug in desperation, now burning day and night as roaring flames consumed everything fed into them: oil, wood... and bodies.

Thick columns of black smoke billowed endlessly upward, spreading across the sky until they swallowed the sun itself.

The entire capital reeked like a giant furnace... the sickening stench of burning flesh and death hanging heavy in the air.

The guard stood still, watching the cart disappear into the haze.

His face didn’t change.

There was no disgust, no anger... just a hollow, exhausted numbness.

A week.

It had only been a week.

And he had already seen far too many deaths.

He pulled down his cloth mask for a moment, spat onto the ground, then lifted his gaze toward the darkened sky.

There was nothing there but smoke.

"...Is this some kind of ill omen..." he muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible over the distant crackle of flames.

No one answered him.

Only the grinding of wheels, the roar of fire, and the faint, distant sound of crying filled the air.

From afar, the once glorious capital looked as though it were burning... by using its own people’s corpses as fuel.

_

_

_

Meanwhile, inside the Imperial Palace of the Fen Dynasty, located in the heart of the capital...

Guards and servants moved busily through the halls, all with pieces of cloth wrapped tightly around their faces.

While the atmosphere inside the palace was significantly better than the chaos in the capital thanks to the countless protective formations and powerful experts stationed here.

But... a hidden tension still festered beneath the surface as their Emperor had been struck by the same cursed plague.

Though everything appeared normal on the outside, a hidden struggle was quietly unfolding within the palace walls.

Inside the vast Grand Vermillion Hall, where the Emperor usually held court and discussed state affairs with his subjects, all the ministers and high officials had already gathered.

Only the majestic Dragon Throne at the end of the hall remained empty.

"What do you mean you still haven’t found a cure yet?!"

Prime Minister Mu slammed his hand on the table, shouting furiously at the group of old palace physicians who wore helpless expressions.

"Such useless quacks! His Majesty’s life is at risk, and you old fools can’t do anything about it?! Why do we even keep you people around?!"

_

_

_

[Come join our discord for exclusive image~]

https://discord.gg/z97rRPN3Wt