Pai Xiao was already gone. He was an avian demon now, soaring far above the clouds, trailing the blood masters as they returned to their monastery. His eyes glowed red with hatred.
Cha Ming could berate himself all he wanted for not killing them earlier, but he couldn’t change what had already happened. Those thousand were dead, as was likely the case in many more cities. All he could do now was follow and save Mo Ling and anyone else they came across. That, and slaughter each and every blood master in the monastery they were taking her to.
He would bury them along with the dead.
Chapter 7: Culling
Cha Ming followed the blood masters as they traveled toward their monastery. He kept a careful eye out on his surroundings as he flew across the skies. To his relief and grief, they didn’t stop at many villages like he’d thought they would. Then he realized it was because they’d already been there. Grieving parents lamented the passing of their children, while wives mourned the passing of their husbands and vice versa. Every village, without exception, was holding a mass funeral for their loved ones.
The proceedings were rushed, almost frantic. These smaller villages had been hit even harder than Liaoning. Here, it wasn’t just cultivators that had been reaped but serfs as well. A tenth of the mortal serfs had been brutally murdered, leaving only bloody grass behind. Hundreds of thousands of souls had been lost in only a few days. Cha Ming’s anger mounted with each passing village.
Two hundred miles later, they arrived. The Blood Master Monastery was a jagged building that jutted out of the lush plain it inhabited. No animals or demons dared approach it, for the place reeked of death and slaughter. It was a small building, enough to house a few thousand men. A large empty practice yard occupied the center of the complex. There, men fought bloody battles that would spell certain death for normal body cultivators. Fortunately for them, they weren’t normal; they were blood masters.
The blood masters returned to their training the moment they arrived. Their leader dropped Mo Ling to the ground and took the bloody stone they’d collected to the tall building adjacent to the training grounds. Mo Ling was brought to another, smaller building by the black-robed man from the Spirit Temple. She was placed in a holding cell where she was restrained but otherwise unharmed. She was safe for now, so he waited.
Hours passed as group after group of blood masters returned. At sunset, the skies seemed to weep tears of blood. Cha Ming knew that every team who returned meant hundreds of thousands more had died to the vicious and cruel men and women who lived here. There was only one thought he could take solace in: When he killed them, they’d never be able to harm anyone again.
He waited an entire day before the last of the blood masters returned. Once the last had returned, the head of the monastery distributed small red beads to each of them. They immediately went to work using this concentrated blood vitality to cultivate blood arts and strengthen their cultivation. The strongest among them, the abbot of the monastery and a mid-grade-marrow-refining cultivator, did the same.
An agonizingly slow day passed under Cha Ming’s watchful eye. He only moved when the man from the Spirit Temple—a medium, it turned out—entered Mo Ling’s holding cell. The man began preparing tools and glyphs he couldn’t understand, along with massive piles of sin crystals.
There are ghosts down there, you know, Sun Wukong said. It’s probably best to do something about them.
Cha Ming nodded. He’d never fought ghosts before, certainly not on such a massive scale.
I only know the few formations I obtained from the Church of Justice back then, Cha Ming said. I’ll need to modify something.
He took a few precious minutes to rearrange the elementary diagram in his mind, adding to it and expanding it using the many formation principles he’d learned over the years. The result was an early-core-grade grand formation. It was a mile wide and completely circular. From the previous formation he’d set up, he estimated that this new one would be able to detect ghosts below the resplendent realm. Do you think there are any stronger sprits down there?
Doubtful, Sun Wukong answered. It’s not a full Spirit Temple, so there’s no need for them to spend so many resources spying. What will you do about messages and those trying to physically escape?
I’ve learned a few tricks over the past hundred years, Cha Ming said. He took out the Space-Time Camera and held it toward the monastery. He fed a few top-grade spirit stones into the camera, which didn’t refuse the abundant offering after so long without. Then, he took careful aim before snapping a picture. A moving picture.
I don’t have to take a still shot every time, he explained. I can simply freeze the boundaries, and the seal’s energy will only be depleted when they try to exit. Communication with the outside world will be impossible.
Satisfied with his barrier, Cha Ming swooped down. He was an eagle now, and the eagle dive-bombed toward the blood monastery. Once it was five hundred meters away, it transformed back into Cha Ming, who threw out 360 formation flags with glowing white runes. There was no need to use top-grade spirit stones to feed it. He drew on Huxian’s light-based demonic qi and used it as ink instead. It infused the grand formation with power, which activated and revealed a hundred or so ghosts. The formation hadn’t been laid in secret, so the moment it activated, the monks panicked.
“Intruder!” someone yelled. Bells tolled as members assembled in the square. Since time was of the essence, Cha Ming held out his Clear Sky Staff and rapidly extended
