The Sacred Leaves Family's Wishes for Peace

Fang Ting had initially climbed to the mountain summit with the goal of forcing all three of them to endure immense gravity and the faint trace of imperial pressure. Under such suppression, their overall strength would drop—giving him an advantage.

After all, the lower the realm, the easier it was to challenge across levels. At stages like the Nascent Soul and Fusion Realms, one could kill enemies three levels above. But in the Saint Realm, that was no longer realistic.

However, once he reached the top, something felt very wrong. Fang Ting stopped advancing the moment he sensed it.

His two pursuers, however, were eager to finish him off. Without much thought, they stepped further forward.

Only when they noticed Fang Ting's grim expression and followed his line of sight did they finally realize something was off.

"What… What is this place?! What the hell happened here?!"

"Those bone fragments… They can't belong to Saint Kings, can they? A Saint King's body can last tens of thousands of years after death—their bones even longer."

"Could it be that some random Great Saints or True Saints wandered here and got annihilated?"

"But why would they come here? Aside from being unusually tall, this mountain doesn't seem to have anything special."

They were confused and utterly baffled. Their eyes kept drifting toward the glittering storage treasures and sacred weapons scattered across the summit.

Fang Ting took advantage of their distraction to silently recover a bit of his energy, hoping to tilt the odds further in his favor.

Unfortunately, the two soon realized what he was doing.

"Forget it! That bastard is using this time to rest. Let's kill him now, grab the loot, and get out of here!"

"Exactly. We need to move quickly!"

They couldn't make sense of this strange location, but they weren't about to leave empty-handed. These were seasoned Saint Kings—they understood how dangerous an Emperor's small world could be and knew not to linger unnecessarily.

The two of them immediately drew their sacred weapons, preparing to attack.

Fang Ting also made ready to activate his secret arts, preparing to block and counter.

But suddenly, their expressions twisted in horror.

"No… Something's wrong! I've been poisoned!"

"Me too! What the hell—when did it happen?!"

The dark mist cloaking their bodies began to dissipate. Their complexions, once normal, quickly turned red, then black. Their flesh began to change in grotesque and terrifying ways.

Fang Ting could sense it clearly—their auras had become wildly unstable, like cultivators on the verge of self-detonation.

"Run!"

They instinctively tried to escape. But before they could even lift their feet—

"Splurt, splurt…"

Both coughed up a mouthful of black blood, their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed on the spot.

Fang Ting's divine sense picked up the truth: their life force was draining at an astonishing rate—faster than if he'd personally struck them down.

They didn't just die suddenly. They died inexplicably, abruptly, as though they had simply dropped dead on the spot. The word sudden death barely captured the strangeness.

"They were poisoned?"

Fang Ting was shocked.

"But they were Saint Kings! What kind of poison could do that?!"

He didn't know the answer, but from their state, it was clear that they had been poisoned.

What he couldn't understand was—how did two Saint King Realm experts, beings with nearly immortal physiques, get poisoned without even realizing it? The poison worked so fast that the moment they noticed it, it was already too late. They couldn't even move, let alone flee.

Even more bizarrely, their souls and divine consciousness didn't escape either. Their entire beings—body, soul, and spirit—had been extinguished.

That meant the poison targeted both body and soul.

Fang Ting was immune. With his Flawless Sacred Body, he was naturally resistant to all poisons—physical or spiritual.

That's why he, who arrived earlier and stood even closer, was completely unaffected… while the others had died almost instantly.

Fang Ting was stunned.

"I was fully prepared to fight them using my secret arts… but they just dropped dead."

The two Saint Kings who died had likely never imagined that their glorious lives—lives of power and prestige, as revered giants of their continent—would end so pointlessly, here of all places.

Not even a will left behind. Not even a whisper of warning. They simply vanished.

If Fang Ting hadn't been watching, no one would've ever known what became of them.

"What a pathetic way to go… But I suppose it was fast. No time for regret."

Fang Ting murmured.

"So that explains it. The dozens of Saint Kings who died here must've all been poisoned in the same way."

He pondered deeply.

"This poison… It's undetectable, triggers instantly, attacks both body and soul… Anyone who isn't immune is doomed. Unless you have the Flawless Sacred Body, no one survives."

"If I'd known this earlier, I would've lured all my enemies here one by one and wiped them all out effortlessly."

"If I could harvest this poison and take it with me… facing future Saint King enemies would be a breeze."

As Fang Ting debated whether to leave or investigate further, the corpses underwent another transformation.

"Whooosh…"

Their bodies collapsed as if crushed by an invisible force. Flesh and blood vaporized into a red mist, leaving behind only bone dust, weapons, and storage treasures.

The red mist didn't dissipate. It was drawn by an unseen force toward the center of the mountaintop.

There, where nothing had been before, a red bead the size of a fist suddenly materialized.

All of the red mist rushed into it, making the bead's color grow even more vivid.

"What is that?!"

Fang Ting reacted instantly. A giant hand manifested in the air, snatching the bead without hesitation.

But instead of pulling it in immediately, he extended his divine sense to cautiously inspect it.

"There's a massive amount of energy inside!"

Energy vast enough to obliterate an entire continent.

Fang Ting's eyes widened as a horrifying realization struck him.

"The red mist… it's the essence of Saint King cultivation. All those who died here—this bead has absorbed their life force and power!"

Over a hundred Saint Kings had fallen here. Their combined essence was now gathered in one place—this bead. The energy it held could rival natural disasters.

Even a Quasi-Emperor would struggle to withstand such raw force for long.

Fang Ting frowned as a new thought entered his mind:

"Who did all this? And for what purpose?"

Just then, as if answering him, the red bead revealed something else within…