The Modern Martial Immortal

"Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang!" Dodging and parrying the Void Swords Yaoguang kept sending at him, the Golden Lion Fiend Lord sent his psychic thought reverberating out. "I am the only one who knows where that hidden cache is! And though I obtained some Dao Lord Realm talismans, I never managed to enter the cache's core. The most precious treasures are still inside! If you could claim that cache, Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang, you would surely climb even higher. Achieving Dao Integration and becoming a Dao Lord would be no idle dream!"

"Do you know the greatest difference between immortal cultivators and ordinary people?" Yaoguang did not wait for a reply. "The greatest difference is that when a mortal is driven to the end of the road, he can at least count on raw courage and a small chance of dragging his enemy down with him. But immortal cultivators... the weak, before the strong, do not even have the right to die by their own hand. They cannot even keep the secrets buried in the depths of their souls."

Four streams of Great Annihilation Sword Qi descended in that instant, the Great Dao of destruction within them ceaselessly annihilating the Golden Lion Fiend Lord's fiendish body and grinding away the heavenly fiend origin at its core.

"Weak!" Despair flashed through the Golden Lion Fiend Lord's eyes, and after the despair came an indescribable savagery and madness. "Yaoguang, we are both Void-Shattering cultivators. Do you really think I am powerless to resist you?"

The next moment, his heavenly fiend origin blazed across his body. Dozens of talismans materialized around him and detonated in rapid succession, and his own Dao Artifacts detonated with them.

"You will get nothing from me!" The Golden Lion Fiend Lord laughed madly, burning everything he had. Even though Yaoguang tried to pin him down with the Heaven-Sealing Stele, it was no use.

In the end, all he managed to do was forcibly bind a single strand of heavenly fiend origin. It was the only thing left behind after the fiend lord self-destructed.

Yaoguang frowned.

A Void-Shattering cultivator using everything he's got in an effort to self-destruct... That really is hard to stop. Though, of course, holding so many powerful talismans helped. He thought.

With those talismans serving as killing moves, the fiend lord was just as threatening as Zhen Xuanyuan.

Still, he soon took out that strand of heavenly fiend origin and stimulated it with the Source Tracing.

In an instant, he sensed tens of thousands of targets, but among all those, the ones that really mattered to him were the few deep in the starry sky.

"And there it is," Yaoguang said with a light laugh.

Granted, the target was distant, and as for exactly where it was, he would likely have to work it out from the regions of the starry sky the Golden Lion Fiend Lord had traveled over the years. The task of searching out those travels could be handed to the Heavenly Dao Sect.

After a moment, Yaoguang collected himself. "Even this Golden Lion Fiend Lord was fleeing back home. As for the remaining fiend lords..."

He started traveling toward the next fiend lord's stronghold.

Soon, a palace complex built among the mountains came into view. Sure enough, every cultivator above Void-Piercing had already fled it as well.

Yaoguang seized a few Golden Core cultivators and probed with the Source Tracing for a moment, only to find that the Void-Shattering fiendish cultivators had nearly reached the Yin Lunar Sect headquarters.

The Yin Lunar Sect once had a Dao Lord who devoted himself to array arts and laid down a level-15 array.

With that array in place, even if Yaoguang's strength were doubled, he would have no confidence in breaking through the Yin Lunar Sect's headquarters. There was no point in chasing them.

So he turned back, and after some time, arrived at the Heavenly Curse Sect. Looking over the region shrouded by the array, Yaoguang reined in his aura. "A level 13 array can't stop me. First, I will infiltrate the array and destroy the teleportation array, so I don't end up encircled."

At that thought, Yaoguang suddenly paused.

Wait! The Yin Lunar Sect only had eleven reasonably active Void-Shattering cultivators. I already killed the Eight Desolations and Dark Fiend Lords earlier, leaving nine. And since entering the Yin Lunar Sect's territory, I have killed six more: Soul Slayer, Foolish Soul, Eerie Night, Heavenly Prison, Slaughter Sin, and Golden Lion. In other words, the Yin Lunar Sect has only three active Void-Shattering cultivators left?

Running the numbers, Yaoguang suddenly realized he had nearly killed all of the Yin Lunar Sect's Void-Shattering cultivators.

If I work quickly enough and take out the Curse Seal Fiend Lord with an ambush, the Yin Lunar Sect will be down to two fiend lords, plus Sect Master Yue Wuying. Just three Void-Shattering cultivators... He paused, weighing the plan's feasibility.

The remaining three are rather strong. Blood Nether can stand against Zhen Xuanyuan, and given how fiendish cultivators excel at survival, that supreme elder of the Yin Lunar Sect is likely stronger than Zhen Xuanyuan. Yue Wuying is no weakling either, roughly on par with Zong Wenxian. Perhaps a bit weaker in direct combat, but still close to ninety million combat power. And one ordinary fiend lord at around seventy million...

If he were in top condition, the plan's odds were high enough. But after only a moment, he dismissed the idea.

Better not. Yue Wuying and Blood Nether are both direct disciples of the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign. There is a chance they carry Great Dao essence just like Perfected Lord Jinghong. If they have treasures like that, I would have to use all my trump cards. And if they focus on fleeing, I might not be able to stop them once they are empowered by Great Dao essence. The moment one of them escapes, my trump cards will be exposed...

Yaoguang shook his head. Most of them can be revealed, but if the top-tier Dao Artifact is exposed, it is bound to draw the Dao Lords cultivating the Great Dao of void...

Dao Lords cultivating the Great Dao of void were already unhappy to see a new void Dao Lord born. Add a top-tier Dao Artifact on top of that, and they would not hesitate to go after him.

Even if they couldn't obtain the Dao Artifact, strangling a threat in its cradle would make the trip worthwhile.

As for offending the Central Heaven Dao Lord over it, it was nothing but a joke. If a Dao Lord meant to hide his hand, the others would hardly find any trace of it. And even if it did come to light, so what? At worst, it meant a battle. Dao Lord against Dao Lord, who feared whom?

I'll kill the Curse Seal Fiend Lord, and that will be my last move. Yaoguang smiled.

The Yin Lunar Sect killed Perfected Lord Bu Zhou, and I, Yaoguang, stormed its heartland alone and cut down seven Void-Shattering cultivators to avenge him. Anyone who hears of it will have nothing but praise for me.

With that, he appeared inside the Heavenly Curse Sect. Through the True Spirit Light, he locked onto the Curse Seal Fiend Lord with precision.

The fiend lord was fully vigilant; at the first sign of danger, he could merge with the power of the grand array in an instant.

Unfortunately for him, Yaoguang simply produced a Dao Artifact bearing the Great Dao of darkness and pushed it into one of the array's nodes. The highly alert Curse Seal Fiend Lord immediately felt his connection to the sect-guarding grand array getting severed.

"This is..." The fiend lord froze for an instant, but his reaction was blindingly fast.

A traitor! A traitor had leaked the workings of the Heavenly Curse Sect's grand array. And the enemy's purpose in choking off the array's operation...

"No!" he shouted.

The Curse Seal Fiend Lord shot into motion, racing straight for the teleportation array. But almost the moment he did, Yaoguang deployed the Heaven-Sealing Stele and dragged him inside it, together with the very stretch of void he occupied.

Then, with a single Void Flicker, Yaoguang instantly appeared over fifty thousand kilometers away from the Heavenly Curse Sect.

As Yaoguang carried the Curse Seal Fiend Lord away, the fiend lord struggled violently, unleashing every manner of killing Dao Technique until the Heaven-Sealing Stele shuddered.

Rather than risk damage to the stele, Yaoguang performed three Void Flickers in a row, and once he was five hundred thousand kilometers from the Heavenly Curse Sect, he simply released the fiend lord.

Free from the Heaven-Sealing Stele, the Curse Seal Fiend Lord looked at the utterly unfamiliar surroundings and went pale.

"I was carried away?" Disbelief crept into his eyes.

Someone had barged inside his sect, ignoring the grand array entirely, and effortlessly abducted him, a mighty Void-Shattering fiend lord?! How enormous did the gap between them have to be?!

He didn't hesitate at all. He didn't even try running. Instead he bowed low at once. "I, Curse Seal, greet Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang. I am willing to lead every cultivator of the Heavenly Curse Sect in pledging allegiance to you, to serve you in all things and obey your every command."

A wise man bows to the inevitable! This fiend lord chose outright surrender to grasp a chance at survival.

"Obey my every command? Then I command you to kill yourself," Yaoguang said.

The Curse Seal Fiend Lord froze.

Yaoguang, too, felt his words had been somewhat ill-considered. "Never mind."

A Void-Shattering fiendish cultivator could provide a good amount of experience to the Daemon Hunter branch. Letting him commit suicide would be far too great a pity.

The next moment, the Void Sword simply slashed down.

***

At the Yin Lunar Sect, Yue Wuying read the message from the Eternal Lamp Hall and crushed the jade transmission stone in his fury.

"Fool! Fool! What a big fool!" The Yin Lunar Sect's sect master shook with rage. "I told him to take his people and withdraw to the sect! Golden Lion died because his territory never got its teleportation array built in time. What did you think you were, Curse Seal? Against a powerhouse rivaling Perfected Lord Jinghong, how were you going to hold him off? With what? With your life?!"

Below him, the conference chamber that had been so full not long ago now held a single Void-Shattering cultivator. Gazing at the empty room, his face was heavy with the sorrow of his sect members' deaths.

"Recall the supreme elders. Seal the sect for a thousand years, and reconsider emerging only once the fiend sovereign returns!" The Void-Shattering supreme elder sighed. "Yaoguang's blade is even fiercer than Perfected Lord Jinghong's. For all his formidable cultivation, Perfected Lord Jinghong has no mastery of the Great Dao of void; many elders who couldn't beat him could at least run. But Yaoguang not only commands the Great Dao of void; his life-bound Dao Technique is the Void Flicker. Anyone weaker than him who catches his eye has only one road left to walk, and it ends in death. In that, he is a far greater threat than Perfected Lord Jinghong."

He looked at Sect Master Yue Wuying. "Our losses have already reached this point... the Yin Lunar Sect cannot hold on. Unless we defy the fiend sovereign's orders and recall the elders watching the Gate of the Immortal Realm inside the stellar core, then sealing the sect and giving up every territory bordering the southern domain is the only choice we have left to preserve ourselves."