Chapter 271 - Decaying Palace

After helping out Feng Chen and seeing the fact that he managed to breakthrough from the peak of the Nascent Sword Intent and archive True Sword Intent, Xuan Hao quickly dealt with the few elders and disciples of the Raging Flame Sect that had begun escaping with his domain before turning his attention over towards Shu Yao.

"Looks like things got sorted out on her side without fighting… Maybe the Raging Flame Sect did not really team up with the Azure Sky Kingdom but only allow them passage through their sect into the Heavenly Sky Kingdom… Or they found out about Shu Yao's cultivation realm and did not want to offend her over the Raging Flame Sect…"

Muttering this to himself as things with the Raging Flame Sect had mostly been sorted out by Shu Yao and Feng Chen at this point, Xuan Hao instead turned his attention towards a certain mountain peak inside of the Raging Flame Sect.

Earlier, he had felt a fait vibration traveling through the ground from that location… The reason why he even paid attention to it in the first place, was due to the fact that he had clearly felt a terrifying aura hidden beneath the surface… Almost like it was trying to break free from something…

This had caught his attention and at the same time confused him.

Something that could make even him feel a sense of death just from a small amount of aura leaking outside… Xuan Hao felt that even when he faced the Domain Lords or the Domain Lord demon beast in the secret realm, he had never felt such a terrifying feeling before!

"I really wonder what it is… And more importantly, why it's coming from the Raging Flame Sect…"

Narrowing his eyes as he flew over the Raging Flame Sect, Xuan Hao directly landed on top of the mountain peak that he had felt the aura leaking out from earlier.

The mountain peak itself was not anything special inside of the Raging Flame Sect but could instead be considered to be abandoned as nobody had lived on it for a long time. Even the small palace that had once stood there, had long since began decaying with the passage of time.

From looks alone, Xuan Hao knew that the palace itself should be way older than the Raging Flame Sect that had only been around for a little over one thousand years. Around the same time as Flying Sword Sect.

The decay shown on the small palace was even to the point that Xuan Hao found it hard to recognize it as such. Given that it had long since began the process of becoming a ruin, with half of the palace already being completely reduced to rubble spread all over the peak of the mountain. Plants and other vegetation would have long since grown over the rubble if it was not for the fact that the palace was located on a mountain peak where normal vegetation and plants found it hard to grow.

"Why did the Raging Flame Sect not just demolish this and use the mountain peak…?"

Xuan Hao could simply not understand why the Raging Flame Sect would let such a palace stay around on one of their mountain peaks without any reason.

After all, the higher up you went, the denser and purer the qi between heaven and earth would get!

Letting a mountain peak stay empty, was simply a waste!

Back in the Flying Sword Sect, the mountain peaks that had yet to be claimed by an elder and stood empty, would not just be abandoned until an elder showed up to claim it.

Instead, the disciples would be able to win a chance to cultivate on the various empty mountain peaks across the Flying Sword Sect for a certain amount of time during the various events held by the sect.

The idea for this, was of course, Elder Song…

This way, the disciples would have a way to experience the increased speed of cultivation when cultivating on top one of the sect's tall mountains and at the same time, give them something to strive towards and look forward to.

Xuan Hao did not fully understand how those things worked, as mountains also seemed to be dived into different categories and ranks given how tall they were and how pure and dense the qi between heaven and earth was on them.

All he knew, was that the Sect Master and Core Elder's mountains were the best in the sect… No surprise there…

Crack!

Walking towards the decaying palace, Xuan Hao heard a loud crunching sound the moment he stepped down on the floor of the decay palace and looked down in surprise. Only to discover that the floor beneath him was breaking apart with each step he took.

"Hm?"

Discovering this, Xuan Hao looked around the entrance hall of the palace and quickly discovered a path of footsteps in the floor of the palace. The floor had clearly broken apart leaving behind the traces of someone else having been here before him.

Xuan Hao did not find this unexpected, but the fact that there were only three sets of footsteps. Two going deeper into the palace and only one heading out again…

Is there still someone inside!?

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao immediately became more cautious as he cautiously began making his way deeper inside of the palace while spreading his sword domain out to search for anyone that might be hiding inside.

Bang Bang Bang~

A loud bang sounded all of a sudden as he spread his sword domain out to cover the palace before he suddenly felt himself losing his strength and collapse on the ground for a short moment before standing up again with a pale look on his face.

"Hah… W-what is that…?"

Retreating both his sword domain and his divine sense, Xuan Hao cautiously looked towards a certain spot at the centre of the palace.

Earlier, he had suddenly heard a loud banging noise when his domain and divine sense reached the centre area of the palace. Followed by that, he suddenly felt extremely sluggish as he heard a loud banging noise, after which he felt both his domain and divine sense suddenly beginning to break apart. Truly a horrible feeling… Let alone when both the domain and the divine sense is connected to his soul…

To be honest, it was Xuan Hao's first time feeling such an overwhelming feeling of pain directly through his soul as he had momentarily lost his balance and collapsed on the ground before quickly drawing his domain and divine sense back and in turn stopping the pain, he felt coursing through his soul.

"…"

For some time, Xuan Hao stood still and looked in the direction where he had felt both his domain and divine sense getting broken apart. Fear was evident in his eyes as he hesitated whether to continue forward or not… Something that could so easily break apart his domain and divine sense… He would have no chance whatsoever when it came to surviving if it actually attacked him.

"Hah…"

Calming down and taking a deep breath, Xuan Hao steeled himself before making his way deeper into the palace. Towards the centre where the thing that caused his domain and divine sense to break apart was located.

The reason for this was simple, he had remembered the three sets of footprints.

Two went in and one went out again!

Given that it was most likely someone from the Raging Flame Sect that had gone in both times, Xuan Hao calculated that he would not just die instantly after entering the core area of the palace and should have a good chance at staying alive.

The Raging Flame Sect, was after all a sect where the strongest person was at the Nascent Soul Realm… If someone at the Nascent Soul Realm could survive after entering the core area of the palace, how could he, a Domain Lord, not?

With this in mind, Xuan Hao slowly made his way towards the core area of the decaying palace. Not knowing what he would find when he got there…

…

At the same time that Xuan Hao was making his way towards the core area of the decaying palace, Shu Yao had made her way over to the Raging Flame Sect as she helped Feng Chen deal with the different disciples and elders of the Raging Flame Sect.

Within a few minutes of Feng Chen and Shu Yao working together. Only the outer disciples of the Raging Flame Sect were left shivering in fear as they had gathered together in front of the Raging Flame Sect.

"The other elders already finished up the different branches of the Raging Flame Sect. Today, there is no longer any Raging Flame Sect left in this world!"

Putting down a communication talisman that he had just used to communicate with the different elders that went to deal with the Raging Flame Sect's branches, Feng Chen announced this news happily in front of the despairing outer sect disciples of the now gone Raging Flame Sect.

"Now… All that is left to do, is how to deal with the outer disciples…"

Muttering this, Feng Chen went over the different ways to ensure the former outer sect disciples would not rise up again and seek revenge for the Raging Flame Sect.

The most common method used, was ruining their cultivation base and making sure they would never be able to walk the path of cultivation again!

Such a method would not work against people at the Nascent Soul Realm and above, as destroying their cultivation base would just end up killing them. No such thing as crippling a cultivator at that realm and above existed. At most one could seal their cultivation base.

People not yet at the Nascent Soul Realm, however, would just return to being normal mortals after losing their cultivation base.

"Let's do that…"

Coming to a decision on how to deal with them, the fate of the former Raging Flame Sect's outer disciples was decided.