Lei Tianming was perfectly still. The amused smile was frozen on his face, a grotesque mask that no longer reached his eyes.
For a long second, he did not move, his mind refusing to process the string of impossible words he had just heard.
It was a glitch in reality, a drunken hallucination. It couldn't be real.
Slowly, deliberately, he placed his drinking horn on the table beside his throne.
The small thud of it making contact sounded like a thunderclap in the dead quiet hall.
Without a word, he stood up.
He did not rush. He moved with a slow, deliberate calm that was far more terrifying than any outburst.
He descended the steps of his throne and walked towards the hall's exit, his heavy footfalls the only sound in the universe.
As he passed the kneeling, sobbing Elder Guan, he did not even grant him a glance.
The other elders watched him go, their hearts pounding in their chests like war drums.
They knew where he was going. And they were too terrified to follow.
Lei Tianming walked through the cold, dark corridors of his sect, his face an unreadable mask.
He arrived at the Soul Tablet Hall, a solemn place where the life essence of every core member of the sect was tied to a jade tablet. It was a place of reverence and security.
The scene that greeted him was one of utter devastation.
The hall was a wreck. Hundreds upon hundreds of jade tablets lay shattered on the floor. The neat rows of shelves were now filled with gaping holes.
The tablets of the Nascent Soul disciples were extinguished, their light gone. The tablets of the Soul Transformation masters were in pieces.
But it was the highest shelf, the shelf of the Void Refinement masters, that drew his gaze. Ten empty spaces.
And on the floor below, nothing but fine, grey dust. Not even fragments remained.
And then he saw it. In the center of the hall, on a grand altar of its own, was the space reserved for his son.
The Imperial Dragon Soul Tablet, a treasure forged from his own blood and a dragon's soul, was not just broken.
It had been annihilated. The very altar it sat on was cracked and scorched, as if the force of the tablet's destruction had been a miniature supernova.
He stared at the empty space where his son's life force should have been. He stared at the dust that was all that remained of ten of his most powerful subordinates.
He stared at the hundreds of darkened, broken pieces of his sect's future.
He did not know how. The concept was so utterly impossible that his mind could not form a rational explanation.
An ambush? By whom? The entire military force of the Great Solaris Kingdom couldn't accomplish this. The Thousand Sword Sect? They would not dare.
He didn't know how they had all died.
But he knew one thing with absolute, soul-burning certainty. They had died in the territory of the Azure Mist Sect.
A low growl started deep in Lei Tianming's chest. It grew, rumbling, vibrating, until it became a sound of pure, unrestrained fury.
The air around him began to distort. A terrifying pressure, a pressure that felt like the weight of the sky itself, slammed down on the entire sect.
"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!"
The roar that ripped from his throat was not human. It was the sound of a god of destruction awakening.
His Body Integration Peak aura, which he had kept carefully suppressed for so long, erupted from him with the force of a dying star.
Every disciple in the sect, from the Qi Sensing new recruits to the mighty Void Refinement elders in the main hall, felt it.
It was an absolute, suffocating pressure that froze their blood and paralyzed their souls. Disciples below the Golden Core realm fainted instantly.
Nascent Soul masters coughed up blood. The Void Refinement elders felt as if a mountain had been dropped on their very existence, their domains cracking and groaning under the strain.
They stared in the direction of the Soul Tablet Hall, their faces masks of pure terror. They had known their Patriarch was powerful. They had not known he was this.
Lei Tianming doesn't care about these ants in his own sect. He only cared about his only son Lei zhan.
He didn't let anyone bully his son from childhood. He didn't even let anyone talk badly about his son behind his back.
He killed whoever tried to disrespect or annoy his son . His son Lei Zhan ,also became more and more audacious day by day.
He became a complete monster before lower level humans . So what ? He is the only son of the sect leader lei tianming, a body integration level cultivator.
Who just dares to kill his son ? Even not just killing him , even killing the 300 nascent soul cultivators,
100s of soul transformation elders and even those 10 loyal void refinement subordinates just below him .
all of these thoughts continuously harassed him in his heart and mind.
Lei Tianming's form began to change. His skin took on a metallic sheen, and arcs of black and gold lightning, the lightning of heavenly tribulation itself,
writhed around his body. His eyes were no longer human; they were two burning suns of pure, murderous rage.
His voice boomed across the entire mountain range, a divine decree of absolute vengeance.
"EVERYONE!" he roared, his voice laced with the power of the Great Dao itself.
"EVERY ELDER, EVERY DISCIPLE, EVERY SERVANT! EVERY LIVING SOUL OF THE THUNDER LIGHT SECT! ABANDON YOUR DUTIES! FORSAKE YOUR CULTIVATION! GATHER YOUR WEAPONS!"
He floated out of the Soul Tablet Hall, a figure of apocalyptic power, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon, in the direction of the Azure Mist Sect.
"WE MARCH NOW! WE WILL TURN THEIR MOUNTAINS TO DUST! WE WILL BOIL THEIR RIVERS! WE WILL ENSLAVE THEIR SURVIVORS AND TORTURE THEIR SOULS FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS! "
"I WILL PERSONALLY FLAY THE SKIN FROM EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD OF THAT SECT!"
His final declaration was a promise, a vow made to the heavens themselves.
"THE AZURE MIST SECT WILL BE ERASED FROM THIS WORLD!"
The grim resolution had settled over the Azure Mist Sect's council hall like a shroud. The debate was over.
Logic had dictated they flee, but the indomitable pride of their young benefactor, Huo Ling'er, had proven more unyielding than any logic. They would stand. They would fight.
And they would likely die. They now waited, not in fear, but in a state of solemn, final acceptance, for the storm to break.
Far from the sect, hidden behind mountain ranges and cloaked by illusionary arts, the thousands of cultivators who had fled earlier had not gone far.
Curiosity, a force often stronger than fear, had compelled them to stay. They watched the serene, cloud-kissed peaks of the Azure Mist Sect from a great distance, waiting to witness the final, terrible act of a tragedy they had seen begin.
Some of the cultivators from the nearest city of the azure mist sect bring their own chair and even melon seeds to chew .
Some even put some tables to enjoy the fight between the strongest sects in the region.
It doesn't matter to them which sect will win at the end of the fight. They just have some entertainment to enjoy at this moment.
It's rare to see a huge sect get slapped on the face by a mere nascent soul peak girl from the unknown eternal sect.
They know it in their heart clearly that the thunder light sect won't let go of this grudge against the azure mist sect.
That's why they didn't go back to their home or respective sects.
They just travelled a huge distance and put some tables and chairs on mountain tops to see the fight that was going to happen next.
The air grew heavy first. It was a subtle shift, a thickening of the spiritual energy that made every breath a conscious effort.
Then came the pressure. A distant, but impossibly vast and tyrannical will that pressed down on the world, making the very stones of the Azure Mist Sect tremble.
Grand Elder Wei's eyes snapped open, other elders of the sect and even sect master lan faced all grim at this particular moment,his expression turning to one of ultimate gravity.
Huo Ling'er, who had been meditating, stood up, her gaze fixed on the eastern sky.
BOOM.
It was not a sound that traveled through the air. It was a concussion that struck the soul itself, a sound like the universe cracking open.
Then, the sky vanished.
One moment, it was a clear, tranquil blue. Next, it was blotted out by a storm of black and violet.
Ten thousand figures had appeared from the void, an instantaneous army materializing in the heavens above the Azure Mist Sect.
They were a swarm, a plague of cultivators so numerous they formed a new, roiling cloud of death that blocked out the sun.
The combined killing intent of ten thousand furious masters washed down in a tidal wave, causing the sect's protective formations to flicker and groan under the strain.
At the very forefront of this apocalyptic army floated a single man. It was Patriarch Lei Tianming.
He was a terrifying figure wreathed in black and gold tribulation lightning, his eyes burning like twin suns of pure hatred.
His aura was not just that of a cultivator; it was a force of nature. His presence alone was a domain of absolute tyranny, bending the laws of reality around him.
The air crackled, space itself warped, and the disciples below felt their very life force being suppressed, threatening to extinguish like candles in a hurricane.
Inside the hall, the Azure Mist elders stared upwards, their faces drained of all blood. They had expected an attack.
They had not expected the entire Thunder Light Sect to mobilize in a matter of hours. They had not expected this vision of Armageddon.
They didn't believe their eyes at all , even after all those elders were killed before , they still had this much power that could easily slap them to death at any moment.
They never believed it before ,but now after seeing the true power of the thunder sect they felt extreme fear .
Until they all saw the eyes of the grand elder and sect master lan . Their eyes were not like the one of fear , their eyes were burning in rage that could burn everything around them.
They are ready to die at any moment. So the elders also try to make a decision in their heart at this moment. Fight and die if they need to .
The distant onlookers gasped in horror. From their vantage point, it looked as if a hole had been torn in the sky and hell itself was pouring through.
The sheer scale of the army, helmed by a being of such monstrous power, was a sight that would be seared into their minds for the rest of their short lives.
Many didn't wait a second longer, turning to flee for good, finally understanding that to even witness this event was to risk being erased by its aftershocks.
Some of them took out their own roasted pumpkin seeds , sunflower seeds or melon seeds and started chewing them frantically, completely unaware of the word fear .
They just want to enjoy the spectacle that's going to happen next...
Lan Suyin stumbled back, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with a despair that dwarfed everything she had felt before.
But then she looked at Huo Ling'er,
who stood beside her, looking up at the ten thousand enemies and the god of rage leading them.
Huo Ling'er was not smiling. Her face was a mask of cold, serious concentration.
She met the burning gaze of the Body Integration Patriarch from across the sky, and in her eyes, there was no fear.
There was only the calm, calculating resolve of a warrior facing her ultimate trial.
The battle for the soul of the Azure Mist Sect was over. The war for its existence was about to begin.