Nine Venoms Sect Founder

"What message were you meant to deliver to the Vermilion Brides' Sect Master?" Harun asked Mukri who'd just regained consciousness. His cow lips formed the contours of a forced smile, and a matching laugh followed suit.

"I am not allowed to say," Mukri admitted, fearful for his life. Harun had expected as much. Emissaries often suffered soul seals to ensure that the message they carried never fell into the wrong hands. Should Harun force the matter, Mukri's corpse would be the only result. Still, it was worth a shot.

Allied sects often possessed Linked Transmission Formations that enabled them to exchange messages through mirrors. However, skilled formation masters could hijack those messages, so for critical matters, a soul-locked Emissary Bull was often preferable. To say nothing that the Barbaric Demon Stronghold and Vermilion Brides weren't allied, to begin with.

"How long until your sect receives news of a delay? And what would be the consequences of your desertion?"

"With my initial speed, I'd still need a week to arrive. They shouldn't probe the matter before then. As for the consequences, in their eyes, I'm just an Emissary Bull. As long as they receive confirmation of the delivered message first—at worst—I'd get a small bounty and wanted poster," Mukri explained, making Harun's eyes shine with excitement.

"Bounties are now mainstream?"

"Yes sir! The World Association was founded 50 years ago to standardize cultivators' ranks, host peace treaties, negotiations, auctions, and regulate the bounty system. Each of the Holy Lands has one elder sitting in the council, on top of the Association's own founding members. Some bounties get frozen due to alliances and treaties, but from the start till now, the one with the highest bounty is Nakula, or 2.2 billion divine jades. Any kingdom capital of the Mountain Edge World has a branch of the World Association, you should check it one of those days," Mukri said, making Harun speechless.

"Since when does the world have that much money?!" He blurted out. Before his death, even hegemonic clans only had a few million divine jades on average—with only the Empyrean clan standing far above those numbers. Of course, those were clan reserves and didn't account for personal property.

"Being the strongest is indeed a scourge. Due to his strength alone, Nakula received bounties from all noteworthy factions under the heavens. Although he vanished long ago, the Holy Lands fear that his strength grows in the shadows. Perhaps he's already completed his Mandate. Some even inferred that he restrained his own growth. After all, Nakula is the only God in the world's history that cultivated the Mandate of Truth to near-perfection. Others can't even start," Mukri sighed at his own words. Of all Mandates, Truth was the most mysterious. Few knew what it could accomplish, because most couldn't even grasp the elementary principles, much less master it. Worst, without exception, those that cultivated this Mandate suffered untimely deaths. The Curse of Truth stood unbroken for millions of years, with Nakula alone standing on the verge of breaking it—a pity that the world wanted his head.

Harun asked Mukri no more questions, and finalized the last few details of his plan, "In three days, you, my Serpent Totem and I, will launch an attack on the Vermilion Brides Sect. You will act as a decoy and lure out the sect mistress and elders by delivering the message you have to. As they welcome you, I will sneak past their defenses and destroy their sect formation. The formation's explosion will be the signal for our pincer attack," Harun ordered.

Attacking a sect sheltered by a defensive formation was, more often than not, a vexing task. Without a strength gap of at least one realm between the attacker and Formation Controller, the assault would result in exhaustion and retreat. For this reason, when she carried out the True Dragon clan's extermination, Dilnaz attacked alone, using the dragons' renowned hubris against themselves—leading them to confront her head on. Relying on the profound strength gap between them, she beheaded the dragon lord and elders, destroyed the formation, butchered their Dao Reserves, and wiped out the rest.

Had the dragons suppressed their arrogance and first hid behind their clan formation, they couldn't suffer such a miserable fate. The Vermilion Brides wouldn't knowingly make that mistake, so Harun had to help them a little. After casting a furtive glance at the World-Devouring Serpent, Mukri shivered and lowered his head.

"As you command, my lord!" Mukri then made three-pages worth of Dao Pledges, officially becoming the Birusk clan's guardian. Meanwhile, the clansmen harvested the new herbs and cut down two sky-blue trees into timber—hauling the logs toward Harun.

Spirit Trees were valued commodities in any noteworthy clan. All provided vast quantities of Qi and, depending on their precise nature, added other boons. Perfect Spirit Trees accelerated the growth of plants and the cultivation speed of those in the vicinity. Granted, the Birusk clansmen didn't rely on Spiritual Qi for cultivation, but their value remained substantial.

Cutting two down to build Spiritual Wood Puppets was no small investment, but for the sake of freeing his clansmen from sufferings, thereby saving his own neck, Harun had to do it. In any case, when this place became a Treasure Land, he wouldn't lack trees.

…

After waving Mukri off, Harun threw the materials into his space world and got to work. The system's Puppet Refining Hall had the looks of a medieval carpenter's workshop. But Harun ignored the tables and tools lying around to focus on the dark-gray grindstone standing on an oak table.

Closing his eyes, Harun fired his Divine Sense into the grindstone. It rose in response, with light rays shooting out. As their name implied, Sense-Grinding Stones existed to sharpen the Divine Senses of cultivators. Sharper Divine Senses made treasure control, alchemy, artifact refining, and all tasks relying on Divine Sense much smoother.

Harun routinely ground his Divine Sense for ten minutes before carrying out any related task. When his eyes opened again, they radiated focus and determination. Splitting into a multitude of strands, Harun's Divine Sense merged with the Perfect Spirit timber, slicing, molding and binding the spiritual energy contained within those logs, like a magnetic field, to create wooden puppets.

About 17 hours of hard work followed, and at a rate of three puppets per hour, Harun crafted the 50 wooden puppets. Shaped like haired monks, wearing monastic robes, they all bowed toward Harun—driven by their spiritual intelligence. Exiting the system, Harun sent the 50 puppets into the fields, letting them take over the villagers' manual labor. From that moment on, Birusk clansmen never again had to till the land, and focused on cultivation and multiplication.

Meanwhile, Jiyan emerged from the toxic wine pond, her pearl-white flesh glittering in a bright-red light: proof that she'd achieved the highest flesh grade possible. When he saw this, Harun swelled with pride. Their eyes met, and faced with Jiyan's enchanting smile, Harun felt life as if a sweet breeze had swept his face.

"Congratulations, I'm sure this record will remain unbeaten for ages to come," Harun praised.

"Only because I'm not competing with you, master," Jiyan jokingly replied. But in that instant, a misty fog filled Harun's eyes, and his consciousness drifted to another scenery.

There, a blurry woman sat crossed-legged before him.

...

"Impressive. I'm sure your record will remain unbroken for ages to come," Harun said. The woman leaned over, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Only because no records include you, master."

…

The image broke, Harun returned to the true world. His sclera turned red, and he spurted blood.

As his blood splattered the ground, Harun felt his world vacillate. His consciousness waned, and he collapsed on the ground.

"Harun!" Alarmed by the sudden change, Jiyan rushed to Harun's side—pulling him into her arms to check his condition.

...

Meanwhile, within the Ancestral Land, the Devil Ancestor observed all this with a blank look.

"How unfortunate that your survival relies on that poison. Should I take care of it before it becomes your undoing?" The Devil Ancestor asked himself, and stretched out his right hand, bypassing a myriad of worlds to connect to Harun. But as he prepared to cure his condition, for the split of a second, the Devil's face twisted with rage, and he aborted his move.

"No. You should suffer."