Nine Venoms Sect Founder

Reverend Weeping Soul's body trembled. Blood dripped from his eyes, and as he struggled to regain his composure, a burst of laughter rang right before him.

"Hahahaha, to think that you'd receive such a beating from a cultivator of the First Range, Weeping Soul, shame on you. How did a failure of your level inherit the legacy skill of the Third Emperor?" a slender and androgynous youth asked. Dressed in bandage-like golden chains that wrapped nearly everything from his neck to his waist, and a long white skirt to cover the rest, the youth crossed his legs over a chess table, with his bare feet close to the blood-puking Reverend.

The Third Emperor he referred to wasn't Agiri, but one of the Truth Scrying Grotto's Enlightened Emperors. As a faction whose roots lay in the Ancestral Land, the Truth Scrying Grotto naturally didn't lack in Emperor-level experts. But some would always stand out from the lot and receive a title. The Soul Emperor was one such expert, and his self-made secret art, the Weeping Soul Mantra filled the hearts of countless experts with terror. By successfully inheriting this 12th-star secret art and cultivating it to quasi perfection, the Weeping Soul Reverend proved his high talent to the Grotto. Unfortunately, the last level possessed stringent requirements, requirements he couldn't fulfill by cultivating in peace in the headquarters. If not for those, why would he bother to descend on the Second and First Range?

Not offended by the androgynous youth's words, Weeping Soul wiped off his trickling blood, stabilized his condition, and erased the red liquid staining the floor with a wave of his hand, "BDSM, your ignorance often baffles me. If I can find reasons to mess with this range, why can't experts at my level do the same? Your cultivation base outclasses mine. But aren't you here?" Weeping Soul countered, interrupting the Barbaric Demon Stronghold Master's raucous laugh. As a hegemon of the Third Range, his cultivation was indeed not what the Reverend could compare himself to. However, since only close friends dared call him BDSM to his face, one could guess their relationship level.

Rolling his eyes, the Stronghold Master puffed in annoyance, "You can't take a joke," he whispered.

"Your jokes are as funny as a human supremacist's views on farm ethics," Weeping Soul countered.

"I am a monster supremacist."

"That's the joke."

"..." Unwilling to argue with the Truth Reverend, the Barbaric Demon Stronghold Master stopped the nonsense here, and shifted the talk back to proper business, "So, how was he?" He asked with a smile. Jokes aside, a cultivator strong enough to defeat an Origin Avatar of the Reverend was the type of variable that could overturn Weeping Soul's plans.

"Strong. About early-stage Ascending God in battle-power. From what I've seen, about the second level. However, there's always the chance that he kept two or three tricks up his sleeve, and so his true strength could reach the third level. As for the cultivation level, he's not a celestial or Dream Seer, so I have no way of finding that out," Weeping Soul appraised, and poured cups of tea for the Stronghold Master and himself.

As besides his plaguebringer skills, Harun only used his golden body and purple essence, Weeping Soul couldn't make a judgment on his path. Both were too rare, even in the Ancestral Land, for Weeping Soul to have had knowledge of them. At the same time, he didn't know of any plaguebringer bridge. Most experts used such skills as auxiliary tools, and never as the main path.

Raising his cup to his lips, the Barbaric Demon Stronghold Master sipped the beverage, then emptied the cup in one gulp, "Ah!" He exhaled as his old friend shook his head in displeasure:

"Uncultured swine." Used to the Barbaric Demon Stronghold Master's antics, Weeping Soul didn't take it to heart, and quietly sipped his tea.

"Though I prefer wine and other more…sensual juices, I must admit that yours is the best tea I've had the displeasure of tasting. Just for that, I can avenge poor Sangar for you—if you want me to, of course. I can see that you're having trouble," the Stronghold Master offered, and his blue and amber double pupils intently stared at the Truth Reverend.

Sangar, Weeping Soul and Xerzan, the Stronghold Master, all received Nakula's teachings in Divination Arts, and were closer to him than most of his descendants. However, the latter two's growth pace outstripped Sangar, and both received the chance to study in a hidden base of the Truth Scrying Grotto. But to Nakula's chagrin, Xerzan proved to have zero interest in the Truth, and only Weeping Soul remained. Raised in utmost secrecy by Nakula himself, Xerzan's cultivation quickly eclipsed both of his senior brothers. Weeping Soul's stagnation near the peak of his secret art didn't help.

The so-called Divination Master that warned the Barbaric Demon Stronghold of the future changes in the First Range was none other than Xerzan himself. Granted, he merely followed the grotto's ways, and wished to oversee his old friend's trial—he couldn't help but feel that the spread of the news contributed to Sangar's death.

Sangar and Xerzan never saw eye to eye, and the Stronghold Master wouldn't miss him that much. But recalling how close the other two used to be, he felt remorseful—a strange and foreign feeling he wished to get rid of as soon as possible.

"No need. Who am I to cry for revenge when the souls of tens of thousands of innocents fuel my Weeping Tree? Moreover, this setback changes nothing. I now have a rough picture of the enemy, and he clearly isn't my match," the Reverend replied, and lowered his face.

"Fucking glorious. This is why I can't pursue that nonsense Truth. It turns you all into brain-wrecked abominations. And coming from me, that should tell you how low you've fallen. Or maybe it's just rooted in your crow bloodline? The old man would be proud..." Exasperated, Xerzan said and stood up, now eager to return to his stronghold.

"No need to find excuses. We all know that you just want tits and ass galore. You sure you're not abducting that Vermilion Brides mistress on the way?" Weeping Soul dismissed Xerzan's words and probed his future moves. The Stronghold Master's Heterochromatic Double Pupils shone with a frenzied glint, and dark-purple energies surged from his form.

"No. Too soon...way too soon. Let the fruit mature, let the confidence and the hubris swell, then crush it all with one squeeze. That's how you tame the unruly.

Try not to die, old friend. Take over the First Range while I conquer the Third, then we sweep aside the Second, and make half this world our playground." Leaving those words behind, Xerzan turned and clawed at the air, tearing open a spatial rift through which he vanished. The rift closed behind him.

…

Meanwhile, Harun split his consciousness from his avatar, sent the latter on simple errands, and returned to his body. Blood dripped from his right eye, but with a handkerchief, Jiyan wiped off Harun's blood, letting his Mythical Idol Incarnation take care of the rest.

"I now know what we're dealing with. Even with the two of us, it won't be easy, but it's doable. We just need to be better prepared," He said.

"I know." Both Harun and Jiyan's strength had reached Ascending-God-level. It was hard to imagine that someone able to resist them both still messed with the First Range's mortals. But having witnessed the clash from afar, Jiyan agreed with the assessment. And after a pause, she added:

"It's not about how strong he is but…how strong he can become."