Chapter 11: Threat

Nie Li looked at the furious Shen Xiu and smiled faintly. "Instructor Shen Xiu really is quite learned—she declares a book doesn't exist just because she hasn't seen it. Does Instructor Shen Xiu think she's read every single book in the world?" In his previous life, Shen Xiu had been just as unreasonable.

"The Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire? I remember now! I think I borrowed that book from the academy library!" one of the commoner students suddenly exclaimed. He had borrowed three books, and one of them was the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire. But most of the content in the scripture was far too profound for him to understand at all. He'd simply forgotten to return it.

The commoner student's voice caused Shen Xiu's expression to darken instantly.

The commoner student opened the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire. This copy was a transcription, not the original, written in the script of the Wind Snow Empire era. The first volume had a translation, but everything after that was completely untranslated. The writing from the Wind Snow Empire period was extremely obscure, completely unintelligible to ordinary people.

Who would have thought that such a book actually existed? Even Vice Principal Ye Sheng and Professor Lü Ye exchanged surprised glances. Although they served as vice principal and professor of Sheng Lan Academy, the academy library contained hundreds of thousands of volumes, over ninety percent of which were ancient texts left over from antiquity. Even they couldn't claim to know the name of every single book. There were many texts that even they couldn't translate.

In his previous life, Nie Li had roamed the continent and mastered seven languages. After reaching the Legendary realm, he could read ten lines at a glance from any book and never forget what he'd read. What's more, Nie Li had spent over a hundred years inside the static time-space of the Book of Time-Space Demon Spirit, where he had perused millions of volumes.

Reading the script of the Wind Snow Empire presented absolutely no difficulty for him.

The gray-robed elder beside Ye Sheng and Lü Ye also showed a look of surprise. Even he had never read the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire in its entirety.

"Ye Sheng, send someone to the library to fetch a copy of the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire!" the gray-robed elder ordered.

"Yes!" Ye Sheng glanced at Lü Ye beside him. Lü Ye didn't dare hesitate and sprinted away.

The eyes of every student in the class fixed on the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire in the commoner student's hands. Both Ye Ziyun and Shen Yue were visibly astonished. As children of pinnacle families, they had read extensively, yet they had no idea such a book as the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire existed. It was far too obscure a text, and hardly anyone ever studied it.

The City of Radiance had three complete systems of runic inscriptions: Wind Snow, Sacred Fire, and War Edge. Nearly everyone only practiced and studied these three types. The Thunder Fire inscriptions had been largely lost during the Dark Age, and the few remaining texts, like the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire, were all untranslated—so they were simply left gathering dust on shelves. Occasionally a student would borrow one, discover they couldn't understand it, and immediately return it.

"Let me check—Volume Seven of the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire," the commoner student said, quickly flipping through the book. The scripture was hundreds of pages thick, filled with illustrations and text, dense with all manner of Thunder Fire runic inscriptions. After the first volume, there were no translations at all, and the ancient, densely packed text was enough to make anyone's head spin. He flipped to Volume Seven—Volume Seven alone contained over a hundred inscriptions. The commoner student compared them one by one, searching for an inscription resembling Scarlet Flame Burst.

Everyone was growing impatient. How long was this going to take?

Shen Xiu's expression turned cold. "I suspect you just stumbled upon this book in some forgotten corner of the library. You have no idea what's actually written in it, yet you claim Scarlet Flame Burst comes from here! Ignorant fool! How dare you slander the ancestors of my Sacred Family! If you can't produce that inscription, I will report you to the Hall of Sacred Judgment for defaming our forebears!"

Nie Li regarded Shen Xiu with a half-smile and let out a derisive laugh. "Instructor Shen Xiu, isn't it a bit premature to say all that? This book is an ancient text from the Wind Snow Empire era—thousands of years old. That's far earlier than the era of the Sacred Family's first patriarch, wouldn't you say?"

"That's correct!" Shen Xiu nodded. This was an ironclad fact, and she couldn't deny it.

"Then it's simple." Nie Li glanced at the commoner student. "From Volume Seven of the Sacred Scripture of Thunder and Fire, flip forward thirty pages. On page thirty, compare the sixth illustration with the Scarlet Flame Burst inscription."

Seeing the confidence on Nie Li's face, Shen Xiu's heart sank. If Nie Li truly found the source of the Scarlet Flame Burst inscription, it would be a stain on the Sacred Family. The Sacred Family had always publicly proclaimed that Scarlet Flame Burst and the other fifteen inscriptions were created by successive patriarchs of the Sacred Family—this had earned them tremendous renown. If the outside world learned that the Sacred Family had simply plagiarized these inscriptions from ancient texts, it would certainly damage the family's reputation.

Seeing a flicker of fear cross Shen Xiu's face, Nie Li sneered. The Sacred Family was a bunch of reputation-mongers who had always paraded themselves as inheritors of the Sacred Fire inscriptions, glorifying every previous patriarch—claiming they had invented inscriptions, claiming their genius had saved the City of Radiance in its hour of need. In truth, the Sacred Family was nothing more than a clan of hypocrites!

In his previous life, before the City of Radiance had fallen, every major family had been fighting to defend it. The Sacred Family was responsible for guarding the city's west gate. But once the great battle erupted, the Sacred Family, in order to preserve their own strength, had hidden all their powerful members inside the Holy Ancestor Mountain Range. This left the west gate undefended, and the Wind Snow Demon Beasts had poured in unopposed. Nie Li still vividly remembered the wretched, agonized screams of the City of Radiance's citizens as those creatures slaughtered them.

Nie Li and the others had been forced to evacuate, abandoning their homes, fleeing the City of Radiance!

Having been reborn, Nie Li had absolutely no goodwill toward the Sacred Family.

In this life, I will make sure this family of hypocrites is erased from the City of Radiance!