Sage continued to terrorize the Artful Life Alliance, getting his revenge upon them for the attempt upon his life. At first, he felt somewhat uneasy with his actions. The fires and destruction he caused lead to many accidental deaths he wasn’t intending on causing. His real targets were only the leaders of these clans, along with those warriors who had directly joined the fight against him. Along the way, many loyal guards and defenders were killed, which he felt sad about. These fellows were only doing their jobs, but they were turned into collateral damage.

In the heat of the battle, he acted without thinking, killing those who got in his way and following through on the plan he laid out in advance. The only way to prevent himself from constantly being chased and hounded was to make his enemies fear his reprisal. In this world, only the strong were respected, and that was because they were feared. Some might admire someone for their morals, but if they weren’t also powerful, then it was only a matter of time until someone without morals took them down. Only with overwhelming power could schemes and plots be ignored.

Sage had improved rapidly, but he still didn’t think his power was indomitable. Far from it in fact. Individually, he might be a match for the best members of First Rate Powers, but what about those from higher levels? He had no idea how strong the leaders of the Dou Kingdom were, and he also knew there was at least one more power at an even greater level. He had escaped from their territory where Guan Zhenyan was keeping him. Thankfully, he had been too minor for them to notice, but what if they started to pay attention to him?

With these thoughts in mind, he couldn’t afford to let himself be bullied by the other weaker powers and he started his campaign of retribution. He had the urge to show off his advancements to intimidate them with pure power, but that would also mean he’d have to publicly show off his abilities. If he did that, his enemies would be able to plan around his strengths. Instead of scaring them by revealing his capabilities he chose to do the opposite. To show them how vicious he could be while in the dark.

Competing in viciousness while also having misgivings about killing innocents was quite the paradox. These lines of thought led to his current actions, directly targeting the leaders of these smaller Sects and Clans. He killed them in a brutal fashion, leaving them as an example while burning the rest of their territories to the ground. Those loyal guards and troops along with the other members of the clan who couldn’t flee in time had to be considered as collateral damage. It was unfortunate, but he had to let his enemies know what would happen to them if they came after him.

There was a silver lining to all this killing. The amount of wealth he suddenly came into was astounding. For these Clans and Sects, the majority of their wealth was carried by their leaders. With the prevalence of Storage Treasures, the leaders of the groups always carried their most valuable possessions with them. After destroying a dozen different groups, he only found the official treasuries of two of them, while the rest refused to share such knowledge, choosing to die first. Their tenacity was commendable, choosing to die in order to give a greater chance to their future successors. For the two groups that did give up their treasuries, Sage figured he wasn’t missing much and stopped wasting his time trying to extract such information.

The hidden treasuries were mostly filled with knowledge. The original copies of the groups signature techniques, records of their history and diaries filled with cultivation secrets. They also had some resources, but they were more rare than valuable. He browsed through the manuals and found they were related to their secret techniques. When the second treasury he found was quite similar he figured it was likely they all did the same thing. Which of these groups were so kind and giving that they would just put all their most valuable things in an old vault to rot? Even if some of their leaders were kind and benevolent, it only took one bad apple to strip the place clean. The possessions that the leaders carried with them were far more valuable.

Sage had destroyed over half of the members in the Artful Life Alliance at this point. He hadn’t targeted the two strongest forces he knew of, the Yincha Sect and Sound Sword Sect. As for the others, he suspected there was another group among them that had a Nascent Soul, so he left them all intact for the moment. He’d heard news that the Artful Life Alliance was rumored to have at least three Nascent Souls, but there was no confirmation on which groups they were part of.

It was at this point that he abruptly stopped his assault upon the Artful Life Alliance.

At a far off place, a huge circular stone door swung open. The disc shaped stone door was nearly six feet thick, yet it swung with ease and perfect silence. The circular stone tunnel that led up to this point was twelve feet in diameter, just like the huge door, but it opened up to a much larger underground chamber, one that was filled with hundreds of people. They were carrying bags or boxes on their backs. They were tired and dirty from the dust of the road, like a huge pack of refugees.

After the door swung open, a small group of fellows wearing much nicer clothing than the ‘refugees’ were led inside by a man carrying a Spirit Torch. They were led down the circular tunnel to another large circular stone door and into what looked like a dark stone basement. They passed by large ceramic barrels and shelfs full of jars. Then they were led up some stairs and taken into a large meeting room.

Now that they entered a properly lit room there were two very recognizable faces among the group of richly dressed people. Two that Sage would immediately recognize.

One of them was a serious looking woman with her hair pulled back in a bun and the characters ‘Yin’ and ‘Cha’ marked onto a badge on her chest. To one side of her was a man with a piercing gaze and a sword hanging from his right hip. On the other was an older gentleman with a bit of grey at his temples as well as a ‘Yin’ and ‘Cha’ on his chest. Surprisingly, the woman was half a step back from where the other two men were standing at either side of her.

Across from them in this large meeting room were a gathering of a half-dozen people, though only two of them were standing at the front. One of them was an older gentleman, quite similar to the Yincha man, while beside him stood an old man with a stooped back.

“The Sect defending array is active and the elite guards are still on duty. We’ve brought everyone else along with us.”

The older man with the Yincha badge spoke, while the swordsman to his side waited till he was finished to nod and then salute the old man with the stooped back. The old man said nothing, but the gentleman beside him smiled, “Good. With the five of us here waiting for him, that damned brat will get what he deserves. So what if he kills the weaklings in our alliance, does he think we’re a bunch of pushovers?”

The five of them all radiated a heavy aura of law energy, and they all had various levels of sneering on their faces. Gathering together here to consolidate the real power of the Artful Life Alliance and set a trap for their enemy.

Then the door to the chamber burst open and a flustered looking man ran in, “Clan Leader! The Violet Light Sect has been destroyed!”