The grunt is sweating a lot, and he might get dehydrated from too much sweating, but that is how scared shitless he is… Witnessing the transformation of a 4th stage into an 8th stage is crazy enough, but for it to transcend its limitations by achieving humanization, and awakening its weapon, this is the height of comedy.
If he starts telling this to his seniors, they would peg him as crazy.
The more important fact is that King Yin Wei is actually so strong he manages to fight that Sacred Beast!
The Sect Elders must learn of this! The Bones Devouring Sect plans to cause trouble to the South, The Desolate Mountain, and the Sword Metropolitan, the Biron Capital any time soon.
For a grunt, the heavy responsibility of relaying this message to his superiors is his utmost priority. So with quick steps, he escapes the bleachers.
What the grunt doesn't know though is that Lu Gao's prying eyes are on him. Lu Gao messages his big brother, and big sister. Lu Gao looks at princess Yin Shu who is clinging to his arms.
"Princess, I am sorry, but I have to go…"
"Let me come with you! I will go everywhere with you! Do you want to check the Royal Archives now?"
Lu Gao doesn't know what is the problem with the princess. She is too clingy and likes to bother him so much. He doesn't like any of this.
Luckily, Shan Yusin is here to help him. "Princess, please let go of the young master for the meanwhile…"
Lu Gao has this hopeful look in his eyes, and it seems that the Royal Bodyguard Shan Yusing is really here to offer him support. "Master Lu Gao has important matters to attend to with his senior brother and senior sister. It is very important for them, so I ask you princess on their behalf to leave them alone."
Yin Shu's shoulder drops down in regret.
Lu Gao rushes with his 4th stage cultivation to follow the trail of the 'grunt' who according to the Game Master the Bones Devouring Sect sent to spy on the King's Challenge. He glances at his Forum account where a group chat of the three talks about their revenge.
The group chat's name is exactly 'Revengers', which perfectly describes their end goal. Xiang Ya and Nee Chen finally join Lu Gao as they tail the 'grunt' who is riding on a majestic horse.
Xiang Ya frowns as she realizes the true nature of the horse. "It is undead. This 'grunt' is really a demonic cultivator."
They easily follow the grunt while maintaining their stealth by separating themselves in a distance outside the grunt's perception. The three of them ride on boars as they chase the grunt.
The three of them are all in the 4th stage, but they don't know how to use Sword Kinesis, so they cannot really fly in the sky while surfing on swords. It is because their cultivation method is vastly different from the whole cultivation world.
The three don't know this exactly, but they don't really care even if they do. Is flying on swords better than resurrection?
After a few nights, the grunt arrives at his demonic sect's hidden base. It was a Buddhist temple, but actually, its undergrounds are the core base of operations of the Bones Devouring Sect.
The grunt comes down from his undead horse and frantically runs to the Buddhist Temple. "Where is the Demonic Master!? Where is the Demonic Master!?"
The abbot who is actually another demonic cultivator finds the grunt's arrival annoying. "You fucking nutjob! Do you want to announce to the world we are actually a demonic sect and not a humble mortal Buddhist temple?"
"This is an emergency! The King received new help. There was a scary strong master sitting beside the King! And there is this new sect with large numbers of 3rd stage, and also another cultivator from the said sect of the higher stage that can stand toe to toe with the King! This is an emergency!"
This stumps the abbot.
"Hurry, they are in the villa!
The grunt runs to the said villa where he needs to pass through an illusion array that with a single misstep will cause his life. It is a strict requirement for every cultivator to memorize the safe pathways to becoming a member of the sect. The grunt is fortunate to have memorized this.
Arriving at the villa, he sees from the distance the four great elders drinking tea. They are all at the 8th stage! They are mighty cultivators!
The grunt recognizes each of them.
They are the pretender sect masters of the Wolf Lightning Sect, Life Revival Sect, Sword Praying Sect, and the Earth Embracing Sect. They each have titles of their own like the Wolf Demon, Eternal Demon, Sword Demon, and Earth Demon.
These elders are the object of fear and reverence of the sect only second to the sect master. The elders had white hair, and all of them have the unique appearance of a sage.
The Wolf Demon has grizzled white and gray hair. He appears to have the temperament of a hooligan, but his stoic attitude betrays this. There is this unpredictability in his aura.
The Eternal Demon wears sacred robes of the religious order. He appears to be benevolent and full of generosity in his heart. However, he was secretly a sadist who enjoys tormenting the weak.
The Sword Demon is the only woman among the elders. Her face is fair, and remains beautiful however is just as much like an old hag in her heart and age. She is downright evil and likes to plunder martial arts.
The Earth Demon has short white hair barely covering his ears, and this is like a public statement that he is not shy to show his face to the world… his ugly face to the world… With warts and disgusting blemishes on his face, he is demonic both in soul and flesh.
The grunt kowtows in reverence and starts shaking with fear. He knows that it will be difficult to inform them of the new intel, but he takes the last bit of courage in his heart. "Greetings, great elders! I am but a humble grunt sent to spy on the King's Challenge! I come bearing news!"
"We sent a spy?" The Wolf Demon questioningly says in ludicrous disbelief.
"I meant it as a joke!" He added.
"It wasn't me." The Eternal Demon innocently answers.
The Earth Demon just laughs creepily with hur hur hur…
The grunt feels as scared now as he was watching the King's Challenge.
The Sword Demon looks at him, and peers at his cultivation. "A measly 3rd stage? Do we actually have trash like this in the sect? How the hell am I to know what is the King's martial arts like, and here I am getting excited about what the King of this backwater country is capable… tsk…"
With a casual swipe of her finger, she cuts off the grunt's head.
The Wolf Demon gives the Sword Demon a stink eye and scolds her. "You could have waited for him to tell us what he saw first! Why are you so impatient?"
The Sword Demon harrumphs at him. "He annoys me. If only the Sect Master allowed us to join the King's Challenge, we could have just advanced our plans much earlier!"
"Hur hur hur," The Earth Demon perversely smiles. "Do you wish to go against the Sect Master's orders?" He challenges the Sword Demon.
"I do not." She shuts up not keen on hearing any more of the Earth Demon's words. For all she cares, if there is one person she least wants to associate with, it would definitely be the creepy disgusting perverted Earth Demon.
The Eternal Demon waves the flag of peace and comes between the three demons. "Relax, my friends. He is still alive. I used my secret spell on him to make sure he is still alive."
The grunt is heavily confused. He sees his dead body still leaking blood from its neck, but his head is still fine and dandy.
The cultivators reaching the 8th stage is when they start becoming more mysterious. They possess more divine powers than a mere mortal can imagine. The Eternal Demon is a master of Martial Spells. His repertoire of mysterious methods is as many as other derivative moves of a master martial artist at the same level.
This is what it is like in a demonic sect where they have all kinds of wicked arts.
"Let us take this matter seriously, fellow elders. Zha Dong, a seeded cultivator of our sect who indubitably should be our next elder suddenly died, didn't he? Even the tracker we sent suddenly died… Though this place is just a backwater country, we cannot risk ourselves that there might be some bigshot controlling this territory. Though we have confirmed that no big shot owns this territory, we cannot be sure anymore because of the strange events that are popping up left and right. So we should hear our beloved minion first, should we not?"
The Eternal Demon benevolently looks at the grunt's head.
"If you want to live. Tell us something worth your life."
He says these ominous words with the same benevolent smile on his face making him appear more demonic and fearsome.
The grunt retells his story word by word, excluding the unnecessary and including the necessary. At the end of his crazy storytelling, the elders have weird looks on their faces.
Ridiculousness.
Brooding.
Disbelief.
Odd.
Abruptly destroying their train of thought is an incredible pulse of the energies between Heaven and Earth. With the elders' superior senses, they detect multiple presences just outside their base.
The abbot that is also the gatekeeper of their sect comes to their villa in a panic. "An army of 3rd-stage to 4th-stage cultivators suddenly appeared outside the temple! Sect Elders! What should we do!?"
The eyes of the four elders land on the nervously sweating head of the grunt.
"Did you bring them here?" Their eyes seem to be asking the grunt's head.