A village, a mortal village with no cultivator present. This village lies in chaos. Everywhere, only corpses lay. Some even smelled, indicating they had died for a few days already.
Only cold air echoes. The houses are empty. The moon is crescent tonight. A silence resonated throughout the village. It seemed like an angel of death had passed this area.
Yang Zhai stood, with narrowed eyes, visibly thinking.
He moves close to a corpse. It was not injured from anywhere. He examined another corpse, it was bleeding. He started to examine them. Many were bleeding while many were not. One person could die without an injury, two could die, and even three could die at the same time without injuries, but not this many.
What's happening here, did the Death Warrant appear here?: thought Yang Zhai.
Only death warrant had the ability to massacre a large number of people in this manner, with or without injuries. Others would have a single weapon mark or the same weapon marks on many corpses, but these corpses had different causes for death. A few were fatally injured to death, a few even died with no visible injury, and a few died for no reason.
Death Warrant worked like this. If the owner wanted a large-scale massacre with a little bit of their own life loss, then this is how it worked. However, if a person wanted to kill everyone in the same manner, then the owner's life consumption would increase.
As the people of this village died in various ways, it was obvious that the Death Warrant might be involved. And he didn't see any signs of struggle here as well. However, Yang Zhai still had doubts about whether the Death Warrant was truly responsible.
Even Yang Zhai and the disciples eliminated many villages, but they also couldn't kill anyone without injuring them.
"What's happening here?"
"Weren't we going to kill them? Who killed them before us?"
"There is a lot of smell in the air as well."
"Be thankful that we don't have to kill them at least."
The disciples were also flabergasted and thankful. They had already killed many, so the value of a life had decreased in their eyes, they were getting used to killing. But, as long as someone else killed them, they were happy. At least, they didn't have to do it now.
"Let's go, it's not good," said Yang Zhai.
The disciples didn't realize the urgency of this matter, but he knew that the situation was very serious. The smell would not only attract beasts but also the cultivators. Right now, the air was cold, which was slowing down the process of decaying. Nonetheless, it was a matter of time before the smell spread.
Even on Bai Mountain, Yang Zhai tried to annihilate the villages as quickly as possible to avoid a situation like this, but Ma Mountain already had this situation.
Everyone was confused as to why Yang Zhai was so serious all of a sudden, but they still followed him.
The moment they annihilated the first mortal village, they were trapped. They couldn't do anything after that but follow him. However, the more they killed, the more they were dragged into this, leaving no way out of this.
"Hey, bring me that spade," shouted a woman.
"Fine," a woman replied.
"What are you doing, why are you not bringing the spade?" The first woman didn't get the spade for a while and looked behind, just to see a headless corpse.
She was dumbfounded for a minute, unable to react for a while, but before she could react, her head also separated from her head. However, while her head was falling to the side, she saw many figures running into the village.
Yang Zhai came from behind and saw two heads and corpses on the ground.
"Oh, they have gotten good."
He didn't expect these disciples to be able to sever the heads from the bodies as well.
Yang Zhai didn't ponder much and entered the village. It was good if they severed the head, After all, it was from where the blood flowed with intensity and a lot.
The massacre began, and the screams resonated throughout the village.
Just like that, six days passed,
The Ma mountain had six villages besides the Ma village. Yang Zhai managed to deal with the four, in the previous six days.
It took them this long because Yang Zhai wasn't very familiar with this mountain. On top of that, he was cautious of the Death Warrant and the cultivators who might arrive because of the corpses' smell.
If the Death Warrant had reached rank 4, then he would die the moment it was used on him. He didn't have any ire that could fight against this Death Warrant, or almost, no ire could.
Yang Zhai and everyone arrive in front of the last village.
Yang Zhai stopped everyone and said,
"Listen to me carefully, I will be returning in a while, if you manage to annihilate the whole village before that, I will step down from the position of the class leader."
When the others heard this, they were happy from the inside but didn't show it on the surface.
"Now, go!" After Yang Zhai said this, everyone entered the village.
It should be enough: Yang Zhai considered.
After every last one of them entered the village, Yang Zhai turned around and started to run. His final destination was the inheritance ground.
He ran and reached the inheritance ground in a few hours. Yang Zhai had no plan of returning to the disciples or back to the village anymore.
When he reached the place, what he saw were corpses, blood, and many cultivators fighting battles. The battles were intense. The reason was that the inheritance ground was beginning to glow, indicating that it was about to open.
Everyone thought that the time for it to open had finally arrived.
Yang Zhai didn't enter the fray¹ right away. He hid far away from the inheritance ground, looking at the battles.
The battles went on, and many died and many were injured. Elder Shu Ti, Elder Zihao De, Elder Jun Nie, and almost everyone had arrived at the scene except for the rank 5 cultivators.
Not only that, Yang Zhai noticed something strange. Yang Zhai noticed that the blood was slowly being absorbed by the ground. Others didn't notice this because of being in an intense battle.
Despite that, when Yang Zhai saw this, he smiled.
"It's working," Yang Zhai muttered.
He was looking around and saw that many cultivators were arriving.
It's dangerous, I should hide. It would take at least a few days for the mountains to absorb the blood: Yang Zhai contemplated.
Yang Zhai excavated a deep pit and sealed the entrance after descending into it. As always, he left a narrow opening in the ground, a little distance away from the pit, connected to it for air.
Three days passed, and Yang Zhai opened the entrance to the pit after confirming that no one was near it. He checked the inheritance ground and noticed something. He finally entered the fray.
Before that, for the past three days, he had been checking up on the inheritance ground from time to time.
As he had dug the pit on a side that was away from both mountain pathways, as well as away from the one that connected to the other mountains, not many cultivators passed the pit. Only around three to four.
Yang Zhai ran, without stopping, towards the inheritance gate. He had just arrived in front of the gate when he heard a voice,
"You bastard, die!!" It was Jun Haru, he continued,
"You betrayed me, you bastard. I had trusted you completely. I even went against my father for you."
He threw a spear toward Yang Zhai. He had already reached rank 3. He was also using rank 3 Kas now.
The spear came and pierced Yang Zhai's chest from the front. Yang Zhai looked below and saw that the spear was half through his chest. Not only that, but it had pierced his heart.
Yang Zhai pulled out the wind spear out of his chest and threw it aside.
The spear disappeared. Yang Zhai spit out blood. He touched the left side of his chest with his right hand and looked at it. It was covered with blood. He touched his chest again and fell.
"You…," muttered Yang Zhai before closing his eyes
/!*****!*****!/
1 Fray refers to a situation of intense activity involving conflict or competition, and a battle or fight.