Chapter 2029 Virtuous Calamity Daoist

The fact that the vault belonged to the Virtuous Calamity Daoist was important to Lin Mu. As it meant that he would either have to find the man, or whoever that had taken the vault.

But before he could proceed, he needed to verify several things.

"Do you think he is alive?" Lin Mu questioned.

"There's a ninety nine percent chance he is dead. The Immortal court had announced it officially after all." The Saintess replied.

"The Immortal court did? Were they the ones to kill him?" Lin Mu asked next.

"Not exactly. It was actually his own allies that killed him." The Saintess replied. "What?" Lin Mu was confused by it. "Who was the man?" He wished to know more, as he hoped it would help him figure out how the man came into having the third ring.

IF… he was even the one to find it.

"The Virtuous Calamity Daoist was a high ranking official of the Immortal court. He belonged to the hardliner faction and became a renegade when his extreme ideology wasn't accepted." The Saintess revealed.

The name Virtuous Calamity Daoist was not something that seemed good to Lin Mu, and once the Saintess had spoken about his origins, he couldn't help but be surprised.

"He belonged to the Immortal Court!?" Lin Mu hadn't expected him to be someone of the mainstream orthodox order.

The immortal court was the De facto orthodox power of the Immortal realm and most worlds followed their rules and laws. As such, their members were upstanding and righteous, being respected by many. There was no lack of people wanting to join the Immortal court, and talented cultivators that were younger were often invited by the immortal court to train there. It was a great opportunity for them to not only get excellent guidance from top experts, but also expand their scope of knowledge.

Thus, it was a great shock that such an individual had been from the Immortal court.

"What did he do though?" Lin Mu asked the Saintess.

After all, for a member of the Immortal court to turn renegade was not a normal thing. There must have been something major behind it all.

"You know the stance of the Immortal court being righteous, right?" The Saintess spoke. "Of course." Lin Mu nodded.

"Well, in the Immortal court there are different factions that have varying degrees of that. There's the three main factions who vary on how they should deal with the unorthodox path and the races that usually constitute it like the Demon race, the Asura race and several others. Firstly, there is the Peaceful faction who believe in active cooperation with the Unorthodox factions and keeping alliances with them. Second, there is the Neutral faction, which is the current ruling majority, and believe that as long as the Unorthodox faction powers do not oppose them or cause, it is fine to let them exist. But if they cause trouble, they will have no issues dealing with them.

Then finally there is the Hardliner faction that is extreme in their beliefs. They believe that unorthodox powers should be eliminated as long as they are in the open. They do not believe in alliances with them and wish to remove them by hook or by crooks. The third faction is the smallest in the Immortal Court, but they do have several strong individuals among them that hold great influence. In the past, the hardliner faction used to hold majority and were also the ones that had forcibly established the rule of the Immortal court. Of course, this was during a time of strife and was necessary. Later on when things had calmed down, the neutral faction became more popular and elevated the status of the Immortal court. Through their diplomatic relations, they brought prosperity to the immortal court as well as the powers that constitute it.

They are still the majority faction now, but the Peaceful faction is slowly growing in size too. And of course, their rise in popularity was not acceptable by the Hardliner faction, which led to direct conflict between the two. At the forefront of this conflict was none other than the Virtuous Calamity Daoist. He was the second highest ranked member of the Hardliner faction and was considered extreme, even among their people. His ideology was to erase all the worlds that were ruled by the unorthodox factions, going as far as to purge the mortals too, as their mere influence might have corrupted them." The Saintess explained in detail, making Lin Mu quite shocked. "It was this extreme ideology that harmed the interest of the hardliners too. After all, the destruction of worlds meant that they would lose out on the talented individuals from those world, as well as the resources that might be present in the world.

Lin Mu hadn't expected even the great Immortal court to be divided in their own politics.

"That does sound quite extreme… to erase an entire world over the actions of a few?" Lin Mu muttered. "So it was the hardliners that got rid of him, too? His allies?" he asked.

"Not exactly. They couldn't kill a member of their own faction, since they were also part of the Immortal court. As such, they first declared him a renegade and exiled him. Of course, the Virtuous Calamity Daoist wouldn't stop just from this and gathered other people that shared his ideology.

This was where the Hardliners had set a trap. Among those that the Virtuous Calamity Daoist recruited, there were several spies. It was these very spies that sabotaged the plans of the Virtuous Calamity Daoist and led him to his death.

It gave the Hardliners plausible deniability and also allowed them to continue doing as they pleased." The Saintess revealed.

It was a lot to process for Lin Mu, and he learned about some dirty secrets of the Immortal court as well.

"So the Immortal court had confirmation he died?" Lin Mu asked at the end.

"Indeed. The immortal court can tell if any of their members die, as they have special tools that can keep track of their souls." The Saintess confirmed.