Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure Chapter 114

"Audacious!"

"Who dares? To attack a Supreme—have you lost your mind?"

"Stop right there!"

The descent of the terrifying spiritual arrow sent shockwaves through the Four Seas Gang. Some recoiled in instinctual terror, but others, minds racing with calculation, surged forward.

These were not fools. They were gamblers.

Behind them stood the Supreme of the Azure Mystic Sacred Land. The arrow screaming down from the heavens was powerful, yes, but could it truly harm a Mahayana master? Impossible.

If they blocked it, or even just tried to block it, they would gain immense face. To be valued by a Supreme was a ticket to the heavens—a single nod from her could grant them a lifetime of fortune.

It was a sound logic. A worthy risk.

But as the vanguard of the Four Seas Gang leaped into the sky, their spiritual shields flaring, they noticed something that froze the blood in their veins.

Supreme Guan Xuelan... took half a step back.

"Ah! Supreme, save me—!"

THWACK!

The arrow did not slow. It tore through the chest of the leading cultivator, blasting a hole the size of a dinner plate through his torso. His body didn't just die; it disintegrated from the inside out, snapping in half mid-air.

The others slammed on their brakes, faces drained of color.

Too strong.

They had braced for impact, but the arrow carried a momentum that felt like the crushing weight of a collapsing mountain. It possessed a lethality that ignored defense.

"Useless trash," Guan Xuelan sneered from behind them. "What are you staring at? If you can't even stop a broken arrow, what value does the Four Seas Gang have to my Sacred Land?"

Her scorn was a whip. The hesitating gang members flinched, shame warring with fear.

They gritted their teeth. Fight!

Dozens of elites—Nascent Souls and Golden Cores alike—roared in unison, unleashing a barrage of spells and artifacts to intercept the projectile. In any other sect, this would be a force capable of leveling mountains.

But against the arrow, they were paper.

Bang! Bang!

Two more cultivators exploded into mist as the arrow plowed through their defenses.

Yet, numbers have a quality of their own. After punching through three layers of human shields, the arrow's spiritual energy finally exhausted itself, dissipating into sparks just three feet from Guan Xuelan’s face.

She didn't blink.

"Continue breaking the formation," she ordered, her voice devoid of gratitude.

The surviving gang members exchanged dark looks. Three of their brothers were dead—paste on the pavement—and she didn't even acknowledge their sacrifice?

"Break the formation!" Cao Tieniu barked, his voice tight. "Do not delay the Supreme!"

He was the first to speak, cementing their path. They had chosen their patron; there was no turning back now.

But the heavens were not done.

Before they could strike the array, the sky groaned. A second pressure descended, heavier and more suffocating than the first.

They looked up.

Another arrow.

And this one was stronger. The air around it warped and screamed, the sheer kinetic potential threatening to tear the fabric of reality before it even landed.

The gang members looked at Guan Xuelan, desperation in their eyes.

"Block it," she said, bored. "And break the formation."

"Supreme... we can't!" a cultivator cried out, falling to his knees. "It's too strong! Please, lend us your hand—"

He stopped speaking.

Guan Xuelan had glanced at him.

It was a casual look, dismissive and cold. But the cultivator stiffened, his eyes rolling back into his head. He collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, dead before he hit the ground. His body was unmarked, but his soul had been shattered into dust.

One glance. A Nascent Soul expert extinguished.

"When this Seat gives an order, you obey," Guan Xuelan stated, her voice dipping to absolute zero. "If you have objections... I don't mind erasing all of you right now."

A chill that had nothing to do with the weather settled over the courtyard.

They had been played. They thought they were allies, climbing the social ladder. In reality? They were cannon fodder. Meat shields to be discarded.

"To die for this Seat is an honor," she continued, her voice slipping into their minds like oil. "Do you reject this glory?"

It wasn't a question. It was a compulsion.

A subtle, insidious wave of Soul Power washed over them. The fear in their eyes dulled, replaced by a glassy, vacant stare.

Break the formation. Hurry. It is a blessing to die for her.

The thoughts bloomed in their minds, drowning out survival instincts. The Four Seas Gang members turned, robotic and mindless, ignoring the death screaming down from the sky. They raised their weapons against the Listening-to-Rain Pavilion.

"Hmph!"

A thunderous snort shattered the trance.

"Evil spirits and demons! You dare wreak havoc in my Cloud Firmament?"

The voice hit them like a physical blow, purging the mental fog. The gang members gasped, clutching their chests, waking from the nightmare just in time to see their doom approaching.

They looked up, past the arrow, to the figure standing in the sky.

He wore silver armor that gleamed in the moonlight. His beard and hair were snow-white, billowing in the wind. In his hand, he held a longbow that radiated ancient power.

"City Lord!"

"It's City Lord Sang!"

Sang Shoudao. The founder of Cloud Firmament City. The strongest rogue cultivator in the world.

He glared down at the cowering gang members. "Scram! Before I kill you myself!"

The Four Seas Gang didn't need to be told twice. They turned to flee.

"I’d like to see who dares to leave," Guan Xuelan’s voice cut through the air, sharp as a razor.

The gang froze again. Caught between a legendary City Lord and a Sacred Land Supreme. It was a nightmare.

"Sang Shoudao," Guan Xuelan said, tilting her head. "You have bold nerves. You wish to ruin my business? Do you want your city destroyed today?"

Sang Shoudao lowered his bow, his expression unyielding. "Today, there is someone in this courtyard this old man must protect. If I cannot even guard a single courtyard..."

His eyes flashed with steel.

"Then this city is not worth guarding either!"

"You seek death," Guan Xuelan hissed, her face darkening.

"Seek death?" Sang Shoudao threw his head back and laughed. "You are nothing but a strand of 'Waste Soul' severed by the Supreme! Do you truly think wearing her face makes you her?"

He pointed his bow at her. "You step into my city and ask who will die? I ask you—"

"Who will die today?!"

What?

The revelation hit the crowd like a thunderclap.

"Waste Soul?" Cao Tieniu stammered. "She's... she's not the real Supreme?"

"The Three Severances!" an elder gasped. "To ascend, one must sever the Body, the Spirit, and the Soul! This is the evil waste soul cast off by Guan Xuelan!"

"That explains it! No spiritual energy, only terrifying Soul Power... she’s a monster! A Ghost King!"

Panic exploded. "Run! We've been tricked!"

The Four Seas Gang scattered like rats.

"Run?" Guan Xuelan’s voice dropped an octave, echoing with spectral distortion. "You’ve been with me this long. Why leave now?"

A cold wind swept through the courtyard.

It was not a wind of air, but of spirit. Every cultivator it touched froze mid-stride. Their bodies went rigid, and then, slowly, horrifyingly, translucent shapes began to peel away from their flesh.

Their souls.

They were dragged, screaming silently, toward Guan Xuelan’s outstretched hand.

"Stop!" Sang Shoudao roared.

He drew his bow to its limit, the string humming with power. A 'Soul-Breaking Arrow'—specifically designed to harm spirits—screamed across the distance.

Guan Xuelan smiled. It was a grotesque, mocking thing.

She didn't dodge.

The arrow struck her chest—and passed harmlessly through, as if she were made of smoke.

She opened her mouth and inhaled.

The souls of the Four Seas Gang elites—dozens of powerful cultivators—were sucked into her maw. She swallowed them whole.

Within seconds, the courtyard was littered with empty husks. The Four Seas Gang was effectively annihilated.

"Mmm..." Guan Xuelan shivered, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy. "The taste of strong souls... simply divine."

Her aura exploded, dark energy swirling around her like a storm.

Sang Shoudao’s face turned grim.

"You manipulated their fear to weaken their mental defenses," he analyzed, his voice low. "You disturbed their minds to make their souls loose. And you ignored my Soul-Breaking Arrow."

He tightened his grip on the bow.

"You are not a Ghost King. You are a Ghost Venerable."

A Ghost Venerable.

Ghosts were usually mindless pests. But if they devoured enough, they gained sentience. A Ghost General. A Ghost King.

And above them, the Ghost Venerable—an entity capable of rivaling a Mahayana cultivator.

"Sang Shoudao," the creature wearing Guan Xuelan’s face purred. "Since you know my strength, surely you know how to choose?"

She licked her lips, staring hungrily at the Listening-to-Rain Pavilion. "I smell delicious food inside that array. I can promise you this: if you step aside, we can remain at peace. I will eat, and you will keep your city."

"If not..." Her eyes bore into him. "I have always wondered what the soul of a Void Refining cultivator tastes like. Especially one whose path is already broken."

Ghost cultivators were nightmares for the living. They were immune to most physical and magical attacks, and their mastery of the soul made them lethal assassins. Even a Void Refining expert like Sang Shoudao was at a massive disadvantage.

He knew the odds.

"I told you," Sang Shoudao said quietly, stepping down from the sky to stand before the pavilion’s gate.

He wiped a speck of dust from his bow.

"The person in this courtyard is someone I must protect."

"And if you can't?" the Ghost Venerable taunted.

"Even if I can't protect him, I must still protect him!"

Sang Shoudao raised his bow, aiming straight at the monster's heart.

"Back then, that kid guarded this old man for three days."

His eyes softened with memory, then hardened with resolve.

"Since he has come to my city... what does it matter if this old man guards him for three years?"