Headmaster Lu Yun!

Heaven and earth froze in their trajectory and the academy disciples surrounding Lu Yun sagged to the ground. They all knew very well what they were doing—making up crimes to seize a connate treasure from someone pretending to be an academy disciple!

A connate treasure elicited so much greed from immortals that they were willing to do something out of bounds to obtain it. But who would’ve thought that their sights would be trained on the headmaster this time?! Headmaster Lu Yun, founder of the Dao Academy, the one who’d established a calendar for the world of immortals, found and recorded its history, pioneered countless combat arts and secret methods, the hand responsible for pushing the world to its current heights!

The Dao Academy has done great good for the world?

No, the one to whom that credit belonged to was its headmaster. Those of the world of immortals had never felt that it was the academy’s people who had done anything for the world. The immortals from that establishment were just another one of Headmaster Lu Yun’s acts of benevolence!

After thinking over everything that had occurred recently, those present finally understood that Headmaster Lu Yun was also the mastermind behind the battle to recover Dustfall Realm. Only he had the ability and charisma to lead immortals in defense of a realm about to fall to the yin spirits.

……

“No, impossible!” A Lu disciple from the academy suddenly stepped forward and roared, “You posed as an academy disciple moments ago and now pretend to be the headmaster. Who are you really?!”

This Lu clansman was going out of his mind. The one nailed to the ground was his blood brother; it ran beyond the limits of acceptance that their target had suddenly turned into the headmaster!

Lu Yun’s words were very clear. If it hadn’t been him today, would their hapless target really be pinned with fictitious crimes and die for the sake of their treasure? Though this was just one mishap, it was also a prime example of the bigger picture at large. Such incidents had likely occurred countless times already in the past.

Lu Yun could barely suppress his killing intent. These cancerous tumors in the Dao Academy had to be rooted out, or the academy itself would be a plague upon the world before long.

However, the Lu immortal’s challenge ignited new hope in the academy disciples. What if, just what if the headmaster before them really was fake?

After all, various cultivation methods flourished in the world these days and all manner of shapeshifting techniques abounded. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that an imposter was posing as their headmaster.

Hope lifting their hearts, some of the academy disciples drew themselves up straight and prepared to spring at the fake headmaster.

“Xingzi.” Lu Yun ignored the disciples.

“Xingzi?” Hearts quailed when they heard this name.

Xingzi was the administrator of justice within the Dao Academy and also the dean of shamanic dao. She was one of the most terrifying people within the school. Though she looked to be a charming, harmless sixteen-year-old, her methods were among the most brutal of the institution.

Someone had once slain several experts in a row in a challenge of the academy’s authority. The regular protectors had been hard pressed to deal with him, so Xingzi stepped forward to handle the situation and skinned the man alive, hanging him in front of the academy gates.

There the dao immortal swung for three months, wailing in agony all the while before finally scattering upon the wind. Such was the style of the administrator of justice.

“This fake headmaster is really committing to the scam—eh?! EH??” Still skeptical, the crowd’s eyes bulged out the next second and everyone fell silent in horrified incomprehension. Fear finally dawned in their eyes.

A small ripple widened in the void as Xingzi walked out of it. She looked the same as always, in her true form of a sixteen year old wearing long black robes.

“Xingzi greets the honored master!” Xingzi fell to a single knee in front of Lu Yun and greeted him with utmost respect.

Her gesture and honorific sent a wave of shocked gasps through the crowd. Honored master, not headmaster!

Honored master?!

As the Dao Academy’s sovereign of justice and a great master of martial dao, Xingzi’s status in the academy was second to only Lu Yun’s. They should’ve been fellow daoists! But she called him “master”, making them master and servant!

“Investigate,” Lu Yun commanded coldly. “Find every single person who has ever bullied the weak, profited off of their authority, oppressed others with their influence, and falsified charges on others for the purpose of stealing their treasures. Identify every offender since the founding of the academy and execute them all!”

The last order echoed in the air like an indomitable rule.

“Understood.” Xingzi remained kneeling on the ground, clearly sensing her master’s towering wrath. Lightning flashed and thunder roared inside hell while all of the netherworld’s inhabitants crouched on the ground.

“And these academy disciples in front of us, execute them all,” Lu Yun concluded indifferently.

“No… no! Mercy, mercy, Headmaster! Please, mercy! We’ll never dare do it again!” The academy disciples who had been hoping to somehow walk away from the situation immediately panicked when they heard Lu Yun wanted to kill them now.

“Please stay your hand, Headmaster!” Immortals of the other factions also hastily walked forward to plead for leniency.

Lu Yun’s words could’ve been just a warning or admonition that the academy disciples needed to rein themselves in. But if he wanted to kill the offenders on the spot, he really did mean business. A storm of violence and blood would then arise in the Dao Academy and world of immortals at large.

The implications of this were too great.

“Headmaster, these people have done great deeds for the world and should not be killed!” said the golden immortal who’d wanted Lu Yun to escape earlier.

“Dao Academy disciples led the charge in the battle to reclaim Dustfall Realm. They endured untold sacrifices and it might thoroughly discourage the rest of the academy’s disciples if you were to kill them!” Requests for tolerance and forgiveness flew in thickly.

Though these particular disciples were high-handed and overbearing, making off with whatever caught their eye and going so far as to arrange false crimes to execute the owner of whichever treasure they wanted, relationships were a complicated web in the world of immortals. Favors, debts, feuds, and gratitude intersected with each other to the point that any possible mix could be behind each plea for leniency.

“Is that so?” Lu Yun looked at the line of shaking Lu descendants.

The immortal nailed to the ground was ashen like a corpse. He’d also just said that he would eradicate anyone having to do with Lu Yun! The nascent spirit of the Golden Immortal of Grand Unity, whose head Lu Yun had popped, was also kneeling on the ground, not daring to look at the headmaster.

“The world of immortals faces the critical juncture of life and death. If the headmaster kills your own for a matter like this, morale will surely decline in the Dao Academy. The consequences will be dire and too much to endure.” The immortals present began to relax when it seemed that Lu Yun was hesitating and they plied the headmaster with a mix of rational and emotional arguments.

The yin spirits in the lower realms were too terrifying. In this decade of war, if it wasn’t for the academy disciples teaching combat arts and cultivation methods to everyone else and always leading the charge… Well, no one wanted to imagine how things might be like now.

The World Gates would open in less than seventy years, turning the world of immortals into a place much like the lower realms. They wished for the Dao Academy to still be their guiding light then, so they didn’t want anything to happen to it now.

“Decrease morale in the Dao Academy?” Lu Yun shook his head at those begging for clemency. “The ones I’m executing are all the degenerates, the scum, the absolute shit hole pathetic excuses of trash that they are! If the academy disciples are impacted by this, that means they are very much of the same. A Dao Academy like that might as well disband! Kill!”

Xingzi’s hand erupted with black sword light and she ran all of the academy disciples through. However, she still showed mercy and left them their true spirits so they weren’t completely obliterated.

It would be up to their own making as to where their true spirits ended up in the future.

Dustfall immortals shifted uneasily, at a complete loss of what to do. Some of the academy disciples were dao immortals! Lofty personages who regarded the world from an august perch… had died like a gourd being hacked apart?

Lu Yun turned around and bowed once again to the enormous monument. “That kind of scum will not be allowed to desecrate your names.”

The monument shook slightly, a slight thought ripple emanating from it.

Naturally, not all academy disciples were similar to this group. The ones that had attacked Lu Yun all coveted his Quietus, but the majority of disciples hadn’t joined them. They long disagreed with these kinds of actions, but couldn’t do anything as the offenders were peers. They, too, feared heightening tensions within the academy, so could only choose to keep to themselves.

……

When the affairs of Dustfall Realm traveled back to the world of immortals, the world erupted with approval. However, many were those who worried within the academy, clearly having falsified crimes before to steal the treasures of others.

This had been a minor quibble in the eyes of the school deans. Which faction didn’t have its bad apples? Thus they turned a blind eye to things.

They’d never thought that the headmaster would fly into a rage because of this, but they quickly realized the severity of the issue when it was fully brought to their attention. Peace was not yet present in the world; countless dead spirits prowled the borders of the world of immortals. As the pillar of the world, the Dao Academy had to lead by example. If corruption snaked through its inside, it would be an unmitigated disaster for the world of immortals.

Just as Lu Yun said, if it’d been Lu Chen instead of Lu Yun in Dustfall Realm, then a masterful young genius would’ve been killed in the cradle by academy scum. That would cause other immortals to lose faith in the academy, which would be a most fatal development for events to come.

Thankfully, it’d only been thirty years since the founding of the academy, so there was still time to steer the ship around.

Blood began to spill in the Dao Academy.

No one who Xingzi identified was pardoned, no matter who they were. They were all executed before they could even explain themselves. Due to the house cleaning, morale drooped greatly and many more disciples voluntarily left the Dao Academy.

Of those who withdrew, those who hadn’t committed any crimes were allowed to leave without a word of protest. But those who’d once committed crimes in the academy’s name were barred and their cultivation destroyed.

This was a fate worse than death.

A junior highly valued by the patriarch of the Zi Clan in Thundergale Major hastily fled back to his clan, but Xingzi caught up to him right before he entered Zi Clan territory. She smacked him into a mess of indistinguishable meat right in front of the patriarch, erasing his soul and spirit.

However, the patriarch didn’t dare breathe a hint of protest.