Book 17, Indigo Prefecture – Chapter 37, Calmness and Savagery
Bloodbath Gorge.
Emanuel and Forhan were together.
“I have a bad feeling...” Forhan said with a frown.
“Father, what is it?” Emanuel said hurriedly.
Forhan said, “Look at how much the Patriarch cared about that Sovereign’s Emissary. Most likely, he wants to draw that Sovereign’s Emissary closer to us. After all, our Four Divine Beasts clan is currently in dire straits. If that’s the case...Linley most likely won’t be punished.”
“Won’t be punished?” Emanuel was frantic.
He had wanted to deal with Linley this entire time. This time, he ‘wanted to steal a chicken, but instead just lost the bait’. Even his most powerful divine water clone had been destroyed. The sort of rage this engendered had all immediately and naturally been transferred onto Linley.
He wasn’t strong enough to deal with Linley, so he wanted to find some other methods.
“How can Linley not be punished?” Emanuel said hurriedly. “The Grand Elder already agreed.”
“Shut your mouth.” Forhan frowned and shouted.
Emanuel immediately didn’t dare to make a sound. Forhan took a deep breath. After being quiet for a moment, allowing the room to fall into silence, Forhan finally said in a soft voice, “As I see it, it’s not too likely that the clan will punish Linley. It’ll be up to us.”
“What method do we have?” Emanuel said hurriedly.
“There are many methods.” Forhan couldn’t help but narrow his eyes, and he laughed coldly. “This time, someone rescued Linley. I refuse to believe that in the future, he’ll be so lucky as to be rescued again.”
“Father, are you saying...” Emanuel laughed.
“I know each and every one of the Elders of the clan. It won’t be too hard to set up a trap for him to fall into. There will be plenty of opportunities!” Forhan said confidently. “During a battle, if we play a few tricks...hmph! When experts are battling each other, even the slightest distraction can be enough to take his life!”
“In particular, if our side loses all of our Six Star Fiends in a battle and there are no eyewitnesses remaining, we can kill him directly.” Forhan laughed coldly. “Even if he cries out at the injustice of it all, who will believe him?”
Emanuel’s face immediately broke out into a smile.
“How can a junior descendant like him be worthy of the Azure Dragon ring of our ancestor?” Forhan snickered. “Even with the Azure Dragon ring, he’s only an ordinary Seven Star Fiend. If I were to hold the Azure Dragon ring...I would be much more useful to the clan than he is!”
Indeed. If Forhan were to fly out with Linley, Linley wouldn’t suspect that Forhan would suddenly attack him. When flying normally, Linley would be in his human form...once Forhan truly attacked, the results would be easily imagined.
Linley could cry out at the injustice, but without any witnesses, so what if he did?
Forhan could simply maintain that it was an enemy who had done it. There was nothing Linley could do at all.
“Forhan. Emanuel.” A voice rang out.
“Mother’s here.” Forhan hurriedly rose to his feet, and Emanuel rose, standing to the side respectfully.
“Creaaak.” The hall door swung open. The Grand Elder, wearing that silver mask, directly walked in. She looked calmly at the two of them. “Forhan, Emanuel. The matter of punishing Linley comes to an end, here and now.”
Emanuel felt shock in his heart. “It really as Father predicted it. However...although it might not be possible now, in the future, we’ll still have our chance.”
Carrying out missions involved walking a fine line between life and death.
If one’s partners were to secretly cause trouble, the chance of survival would be very low.
“From today onwards, Linley will depart from Bloodbath Gorge. He will not take on any assignments from Bloodbath Gorge.” The Grand Elder said calmly.
Forhan and Emanuel were stunned.
They were utterly stupefied!
“Mother, how can that be?” Forhan said hurriedly. “The rules of our clan state that each person can only retire after a thousand years. Linley hasn’t been in Bloodbath Gorge for very long. He’s far from reaching the thousand year mark.”
“Right. The rules of the clan can’t be broken.” Emanuel said frantically as well.
If Linley weren’t to take on assignments in Bloodbath Gorge, and instead remained in the Skyrite Mountains, there was no way at all for them to make Linley die...after all, no private battles were permitted within the Skyrite Mountains.
“This is the decision of the four clan leaders!” The Grand Elder said coldly.
Forhan and Emanuel, hearing these words, couldn’t help but be stunned. The Patriarch was the leader of their clan. The joint orders of the four clan leaders were completely unchangeable!
From that day onwards, Linley no longer needed to go to Bloodbath Gorge. He was able to calmly leave a peaceful life. Delia and Bebe, upon hearing this news, were extremely happy...and so, in such a peaceful manner, their life proceeded.
In the eyes of the Four Divine Beasts clan, Linley was their hope of a connection to the Redbud Sovereign!
But what Linley didn’t know was...to the eight great clans, he was their greatest threat!
The Skyrite Mountains. Within the gorge.
There was a grassy yard in front of Linley’s room, which had a stone table placed in the middle of it. The stone table had a bottle of wine atop it, and Linley was currently holding a book in his hands. Linley’s four clones were all training, while his original body was enjoying the peace.
Delia walked out from her room, holding two plates of food in her hands. Seeing Linley reading, she couldn’t help but chuckle. She walked over, gently placing the plates down on the stone table.
“Eh?”
Linley suddenly smelled a fragrant odor, and he turned to look at the platter. His eyes couldn’t help but to light up. “Delia, haha, it smells so delicious. Your culinary skills have improved greatly.” As he spoke, he flipped the book shut.
He immediately went to go for a taste, and ate while praising, “Not bad, not bad. The taste is comparable to that of the restaurants in the cities.”
“Far from it.” Delia laughed, her face blushing. “This is based off of one of several cooking recipes I bought on my last trip to the city. The ingredients for these dishes, I acquired by asking those who went to the cities to buy for me.”
Delia sat down across from him, resting her chin on her hands as she watched Linley eat.
As Linley ate, he suddenly began to chuckle.
“Why are you laughing like an idiot?” Delia couldn’t help but smile as well.
“I’m just thinking!” Linley let out a sigh. “Training in the Laws, adventuring in the boundless Infernal Realm...then, when free, reading some books, drinking some fine wine, then eating the delicious food prepared by my wife. This sort of life is simply...haha, perfect!” Linley laughed, absolutely delighted.
Delia laughed as well.
“Linley, if you always want to live such a comfortable life, you can, you know.” Delia said. “As long as in the future, you don’t go to Bloodbath Gorge, that’ll be enough. I keep on having the feeling that the Four Divine Beasts clan care too much about their face...if it was me, I would’ve ordered the Four Divine Beasts clan to remain locked in the mountain. The members of the clan would all live quiet lives. Why go battle against those eight great clans?”
Linley put down his chopsticks.
“Enough, Delia.” Linley laughed. “Life, especially for those who possess unending life, is all about face. The glory of the clan is particularly valued. Unless it is absolutely necessary...the clan won’t choose to retreat into the mountains and completely turtle up.”
Delia laughed. “It doesn’t matter to me, as long as you don’t have to go to Bloodbath Gorge.” In Delia’s heart, she didn’t feel too much of a sense of belonging to the Four Divine Beasts clan. All she cared about was...that Linley had to be safe.
“Hehe...” Linley chuckled.
“Come, you have a taste as well. This flavor really is excellent.” Linley laughed as he spoke.
In the blink of an eye, a hundred years of this sort of life passed. With Linley by her side, Delia naturally didn’t feel bored at all. Every day, her face was wreathed in smiles, and she also learned how to cook one delicacy after another, to Linley’s great delight, as he could now often taste new food.
As for Bebe...
He occasionally would be with Linley, or joke around with the members of the Yulan branch, but when bored, Bebe would still join the clan’s squadrons and head out to the city for a stroll.
Bloodbath Gorge. The Grand Palace of the Four Divine Beasts. The four clan leaders were assembled there.
“It’s only been a century!” Gislason’s face was gloomy.
“In the past century, it seems as though those eight great clans have gone mad! They don’t care about casualties at all, nor about wasting Sovereign’s Might. They insist on killing our people!” The Patriarch of the White Tiger clan said furiously.
“In the past century, our Vermillion Bird clan has lost three Elders. The rest of you?” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan said, a long, gloomy look her face.
“Our White Tiger clan has lost four Elders!” The Patriarch of the White Tiger clan’s words held boundless rage. “Third Brother, how about your Black Tortoise clan?”
The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan let out a low sigh as well. “Our Black Tortoise clan’s losses have been severe as well. We lost two Elders. It has only been a century!”
“Elder Brother.” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan looked towards Gislason.
“Our Azure Dragon clan has lost three Elders.” Gislason sighed. “By my calculations, in a short century, our Four Divine Beasts clan has lost a total of twelve Elders!”
Based on how things had previously progressed in their war of attrition, the loss of twelve Elders was something which would happen in a thousand years.
But now, they reached that number in a mere century.
“Those eight great clans have gone mad.” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan said angrily. “In the past century, each time, they’ll send out three or four Seven Star Fiends. And each time, one of them will be holding a Sovereign’s Might! They don’t begrudge using the Sovereign’s Might at all, if it means they can kill all our people.”
“They’ve lost quite a bit in their madness as well.” Gislason said. “Our Azure Dragon clan alone has killed four of their Elders.”
“Our Vermillion Bird clan has killed three.”
The four clan leaders all reported their results.
“In the past thousand years, the losses of the eight great clans have been even greater than ours. They lost fifteen of their Elders.” Gislason said.
“But the eight great clans have the advantage of numbers.” The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan said in a low voice. “Ever since our four ancestors died, our Four Divine Beasts clan has lost, in total, nearly a hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends...now, our entire Four Divine Beasts clan has, all combined, roughly around a hundred surviving Seven Star Fiends. But the enemy? They have more than three hundred Seven Star Fiends in total!”
Any of the eight great clans could compare with the Azure Dragon clan in terms of experts.
Early on, the Azure Dragon clan had over sixty Seven Star Fiends as well.
The eight great clans originally had nearly five hundred Seven Star Fiends as well. After so many years of warfare, they had killed nearly a hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends of the Four Divine Beasts clan, while they themselves had lost more than a hundred.
But despite that, the combined forces of the eight great clans still numbered more than three hundred Seven Star Fiends?
If this sort of attrition continued...
Even after all of the experts of the Four Divine Beasts clan were dead, the enemy would probably still have two hundred or more Elders. In addition, the enemy also had many supreme experts. The Patriarchs of the eight great clans were all extremely powerful figures!
“Madness. Madness! They ignore the cost in Sovereign’s Might and in deaths of Seven Star Fiends. They’ve all gone mad!” The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan said unhappily.
“What’s going on? In the past ten thousand years, they’ve never been as wild as this. Why have they gone so mad in the past century?” Gislason simply couldn’t understand it.
But how could the leaders of the Four Divine Beasts clan have imagined...that the reason these eight great clans had gone mad and sent out three or four Elders to join forces each time was, first of all, in the hopes that when they ran into Linley, they would be able to kill him.
And the second reason was, they wanted to speed up the pace! They didn’t dare to waste more time, for fear that as time went on, Linley might suddenly break through and become that which they feared the most; a ‘Highgod Paragon’.
Although the Four Divine Beasts clan and the eight great clans had entered a wild state, the Skyrite Mountains were still very quiet and calm. Linley lived this sort of calm life with no struggles, while his four clones constantly improved as well.
After his retirement from Bloodbath Gorge, two hundred years had passed.
In the past two hundred years, Linley had made the greatest improvements in his divine water clone, which could in fact be described as having made ‘monstrous gains’. The speed at which he gained new insights into the profound mysteries was absolutely ‘astonishing’. It was on a full level faster than even his divine earth clone and his divine wind clone.
Naturally, it was countless times faster than his divine fire clone.
By now, his divine water clone had already reached the God level long ago, and had mastered three profound mysteries and was currently working on the fourth...but actually, if one closely considered it, this wasn’t too astonishing. After all, after the Ancestral Baptism, Linley had naturally understood one of the profound mysteries.
His divine wind clone had gained mastery into a sixth profound mystery, but since the Laws of the Wind had nine profound mysteries in total, it was harder to advance in.
As for his divine fire clone, it was still working on the third profound mystery, advancing at a slow pace.
“Linley, your life is quite comfortable.” A loud laugh rang out.
Linley, Delia, and Bebe were seated around a table, eating while chatting.
Linley turned to look. The person who had walked in was Elder Garvey.
“Garvey seems to have a rather unhappy look on his face. He’s worrying about something.” Linley could tell this at a single glance. For an expert such as Elder Garvey to so easily reveal his thoughts meant that something major had definitely occurred.”
“Elder Garvey.” Bebe was the first to welcome him happily. “Hurry on over. This is the first time my Boss cooked. Have a taste...it is so delicious, you could die!”
“Bebe.” Linley couldn’t help but feel his face heat up.
He clearly had done exactly as the cookbook described, but the difference in flavor between what he had cooked and what Delia cooked was...simply too vast. However, it wasn’t so bad as to cause someone to ‘die’.