"I'll talk, I'll talk… This place isn't called Treasure Tree Sect anymore. It's called the Tree Spirit Sect now. Teams of rogue cultivators from all over seized this territory and set up a sect. One of those rogue teams was the strongest — the sect master and several elders of the Tree Spirit Sect all came from that group. Ever since the Tree Spirit Sect set up shop here, more and more rogue cultivators have been flocking to join, and their influence has only grown."
Despite his hulking frame, the bald man turned out to be nothing more than a coward blustering on the inside. One threat from Consort Dan and he was literally pissing himself, spilling everything like beans pouring out of a bamboo tube.
"A rabble of nobodies," Consort Dan murmured, her delicate brows furrowing slightly. Rogue cultivator teams seizing territory, gathering a band of desperados — this kind of hastily assembled sect had no cohesion to speak of, let alone any loyalty or sense of belonging. In plain terms, they were only together for short-term gain.
"What happened to the original people of Treasure Tree Sect?" Consort Dan asked, her tone flat and distant.
"The… the original people?" The bald man stammered. "There was nobody here when we arrived. The place was completely empty. Word has it that before the Scarlet Cauldron Central Domain invaded the Myriad Realms Territory, the people of Treasure Tree Sect simply vanished overnight. No one knows where they went. After that, not a single person from the sect ever showed up again."
"You're sure?"
"I… I just heard it from others." The bald man's face went pale under the chill of Consort Dan's killing intent, and he faltered. "I… I arrived late. Everything before that — I heard it from other people."
"Tree Spirit Sect?" A flash of fury crossed Consort Dan's heart. "Cuckoos usurping the magpie's nest — and they even dare to change the sect's name? Who exactly is this so-called sect master of the Tree Spirit Sect?"
"He… he's a rogue cultivator from the Upper Eight Regions. His cultivation is far beyond ours. He's a Sacred realm elder." The bald man shuddered all over as he felt Consort Dan's murderous aura.
"Sacred realm? What's his name?"
"Everyone calls him Sect Master Qin. He seems to have some kind of street alias — Qin Thirteen."
"Qin Thirteen? Never heard of him." Consort Dan shook her head slightly.
"My lady, I've told you everything I know. Please, spare this lowly one's worthless life." The bald man begged desperately.
A cold gleam flickered through Consort Dan's eyes, and her voice turned to ice. "Very well. Cut out your own tongue and get lost!"
"What?! Mercy, my lady!" The bald man nearly dropped dead from fright at the thought of losing his tongue.
But then he glanced up and saw the layer of frost covering Consort Dan's face, and his heart lurched. He knew that if he didn't comply, he wouldn't lose a tongue — he'd lose his head.
Gritting his teeth, he swung a blade straight into his mouth. Half his tongue was sliced clean off. Cold sweat beaded on the bald man's forehead from the pain. He snatched up the severed half, spun around, and fled. He didn't dare linger a single moment longer.
If he hurried to find a healer now, the tongue could still be reattached.
But if he hesitated — if that frost-cold lady changed her mind — it wouldn't be his tongue he'd lose, but his head.
As far as Consort Dan was concerned, killing a nobody like this would have vented her anger. She didn't even spare a glance at the departing bald man, instead gazing toward the gates of Treasure Tree Sect with a faint crease between her brows.
"Grandfather spent his years in seclusion in the Tiangui Kingdom, but his heart always longed to return to Treasure Tree Sect. His soul truly belonged to this place. And now the sect has fallen into the hands of a band of brutes. If he ever found out, it would break his heart."
Thinking of this — compounded by the fact that she had turned up nothing over these past days — the pent-up frustration that had been building inside her finally erupted.
"For Grandfather's sake, for his sake, this sect absolutely cannot remain in the hands of these crude animals. What if someday they come back?"
With that thought, Consort Dan's lithe figure dissolved into a pale cyan streak of light and plunged into the heart of Treasure Tree Sect.
Consort Dan had rarely visited Treasure Tree Sect in the past. Each time she came, it had been alongside Old Ancestor Ye, and she had never developed any particularly deep attachment to the place.
But once she passed through the main gates, the sight that greeted her was one of utter filth and corruption — nothing remained of the dignity that had once defined one of the Four Great Sects.
Groups of rogue cultivators milled about everywhere — clusters here, bunches there, drifting aimlessly through the grounds. Some were drinking and gorging on meat, others were carousing, and still others were indulging in debauchery…
Standing on a high vantage point, Consort Dan looked down upon the scene, and her fury nearly made her lungs burst.
Just then, her ears caught something — from a secluded courtyard deep in the rear mountain, she could faintly hear the sounds of weeping and screaming, interspersed with the wicked, lewd laughter of men, drifting up from below.
Consort Dan's brows shot upward, and she turned her gaze toward the source.
In that courtyard, a group of women — stripped completely naked — were being driven around by a band of men like a flock of sheep chased by hyenas, letting out piercing screams at intervals.
Each of the men carried a whip, cracking it through the air with sharp, snapping sounds that left the women too terrified to care about their modesty, scrambling in every direction with nothing but screams.
The whole scene looked like livestock being herded.
Most of the women were quite young, clearly possessing both beauty and lovely figures. But across their snow-white skin ran stripe after stripe of bloody welts and wounds. It was obvious at a glance that they were being kept here as playthings for these depraved men to vent their lust and entertain themselves with.
Whenever one of the men lashed out with his whip and snagged a woman, he would have his way with her right there, no different from an animal.
The sheer chaos and depravity of it all sent Consort Dan's willow-leaf brows shooting upright with rage.
"You filthy beasts!" Consort Dan was a woman herself. Seeing these brutes defile these poor creatures pushed her fury to its absolute limit.
Her figure blurred, and Consort Dan dove straight down.
"Hm? What's going on?" The men were all cultivators of no small skill. They caught a flash at the corner of their eyes — someone had appeared in the courtyard?
Some of them simply didn't bother caring and went right back to chasing the women, laughing and whooping with reckless abandon.
Consort Dan's elegant figure streaked through the air, and the short blade in her hand swept forward to meet the wind.