Night had fallen. Thirty li away, atop a distant mountain, the battered Master Ruin flew in and landed with a swish.
He staggered as he landed, his breath ragged. After coughing twice, he spat out a mouthful of blood. Monk Jueyuan’s Nine Yang Divine Skill was his nemesis. If Jueyuan actually practiced martial arts, or if Master Ruin didn’t have such an absurd amount of inner strength, or if this weird icy-black energy of his wasn’t so deadly, he wouldn’t have dared pick a fight with Jueyuan in the first place. Getting smacked by those two giant iron buckets, Master Ruin felt like every bone in his body had cracked.
On this mountaintop, more than twenty figures stood in the shadows, all silent, each one emanating a strong presence. Over twenty pairs of eyes glinted in the darkness like hungry wolves ready to pounce. Seeing the sorry state of Master Ruin, nobody spoke, but every gaze was full of schadenfreude and scorn—and a barely contained eagerness to pick a fight.
As peripheral members of the Eternal Sky Cult, they ranked themselves by victories, kills, and achievements—and those rankings determined their perks. The higher the rank, the better the treatment. It was a cutthroat jungle, and these folks were vicious to the bone. Still, even after being wounded by the Nine Yang Divine Skill, Master Ruin didn’t care about any of them.
Except for one person—he was the only one Master Ruin truly feared.
That was a tall, powerfully built man wearing a terrifying copper mask. You couldn’t see his face, couldn’t even guess his age—everything about him was shrouded in mystery. Even the hooded freak who’d rescued Master Ruin, the one with the authority to command the Mongol army and lead the peripheral organization, treated this masked man with utter respect and humility.
This masked man was, in fact, the hooded freak’s big boss—the official priest of the Eternal Sky Cult. Now, ‘official priest’ might not sound like much, but you should know there are only seven official priests in the whole Eternal Sky Cult. Any one of them outranks even provincial governors. That government official who went to Jing Mountain looking for Guo Shoujing? In front of this Copper Priest, he was as meek as a puppy. The guy had real power.
At a glance, you could see he was fiddling with a severed finger—none other than Joey Joy’s famous finger.
“Shaolin really is the ancestral home of Zen Buddhism—full of hidden masters, not to be underestimated. If they hadn’t just been beaten recently and were nursing injuries, tonight wouldn’t have been so easy.” The voice came muffled through the mask, echoing with a weird pressure. The Copper Priest glanced at the finger in his hand. “Zen Finger Strike? Not bad. Worth collecting.”
“Sir,” the hooded man approached from afar, bowing. “Everything’s taken care of. We’ve grabbed most of the scriptures from Shaolin’s library, and all other matters are sorted. The only thing we haven’t found is ‘that item.’ Silver Priest and the old monk are still off fighting and haven’t returned. Should we go help them?”
"No need," said the Copper Priest, perfectly calm. "That old monk is a master of fate and fortune, unfathomable as a ghost or god. All of Shaolin considers him their strongest, and that stone must be with him. But in the end, his lifespan is running out, his destiny nearly spent. With Silver Priest making a move, even if he can't win quickly, a drawn-out fight will finish him off. We'll head back first. After Silver Priest kills the enemy and gets the stone, he'll return to Eternal Heaven. Besides, you lot are just small fry—no point in joining in, you'd only get in the way."
He was blunt, because he could afford to be. None of the twenty dared complain. The peripheral members were, after all, just the surrender crowd—folks who had no choice but to bow their heads.
But Master Ruin suddenly spoke up, voice cold and sinister: "Small fry? Hmph, don’t lump me in with them!"
"Oh, you’ve got the guts to talk back?" The Copper Priest glanced at Master Ruin, but instead of getting angry, he nodded. "Hmm, you managed to fight that monk without losing—impressive. So, the crime of smearing blood and writing on the walls of Shaolin’s main courtyard can be forgiven."
"If I hadn’t been interrupted at the crucial moment, killing that monk would've been a piece of cake!" Just mentioning it made Master Ruin grind his teeth in frustration. He’d finally loosened a bottleneck and was about to break through—right at the most critical moment. Who could’ve guessed that Yang Qi would smash through the door with a giant wooden plank, wrecking everything? Then he got beaten up, badly injured, and forced into a berserk state, nearly losing all his martial arts.
If not for that, he never would’ve renamed himself Master Ruin.
But disaster brings opportunity, and opportunity hides disaster. After going berserk, he ended up with this eerie, deathly blue-black power—which gave him hope for a breakthrough. Once all his ridiculously vast inner strength transformed into this blue-black power, he was sure he could rule the world. Just one smack from his giant blue palm, and even the legendary Dragon Subduing Palm might not be a match for him.
But cultivating this blue-black power came with conditions.
He had to rely on the Eternal Sky Cult to meet those conditions.
"I need women. I need women to train my skills." Master Ruin was direct, no shame at all. "Give me women, and I’ll kill anyone you want dead."
"How many women?"
"Nine hundred." Master Ruin's voice was so chillingly venomous that even the other twenty-plus people glanced his way. "Nine hundred women, to suffer the most extreme torment in the world, endless agony, until their souls are utterly destroyed—then cut off their heads and bring them to me. All I want are the heads—at least nine hundred."
"As long as you serve the cult loyally and work wholeheartedly for the Great Khan, a few sheep heads—whether nine hundred, nine thousand, or ninety thousand—are no big deal." The Copper Priest was utterly unfazed, his tone flat, as if they weren't discussing something monstrous at all. Behind the bizarre mask, his eyes glinted with a chilling, commanding light. "As long as you’re worth it."
"Worth it?" Master Ruin didn’t rush to flatter or pledge loyalty like a typical Central Plains guy. Instead, he suddenly raised his right hand. Whoosh—a wild wind gathered, immense power swirling into his palm. His right hand instantly turned blue-black and murky, radiating a terrifying aura.
Everyone else tensed up, ready for trouble—except the Copper Priest, who just watched quietly, his eyes even brighter and sharper than before.
(This chapter isn’t over yet~.~ Click next page for more awesome content!)
"Hmph!" Master Ruin sneered at the others before slamming his palm into the ground. With a thunderous boom, tons of sand, rocks, tree roots, and chunks of earth exploded everywhere, as if a bomb had gone off. Almost everyone got splattered with dirt. The sand was so forceful that people had to either channel their energy to block or dodge out of the way.
When things finally quieted down, they saw a giant palm print at least a zhang wide stamped into the earth. That blue-black, ominous energy lingered around it, making people want to stay far, far away. Everyone was stunned—even the hooded man seemed a little shaken.
Only the Copper Priest stood as before, eyes unchanged. "You—what’s your name? What’s that move called?"
"Master Ruin. Xuanming Divine Palm."
"Master Ruin, Xuanming Divine Palm. Good, I’ll remember you." The Copper Priest nodded slightly. "Ask for as many as you want—you’ll get them."
Switching perspective back to our main characters.
Setting fire to Shaoshi Mountain and wiping out Shaolin Temple—now that’s a martial arts bombshell even bigger than the death of Qiu Chuji. Once word gets out, the whole martial world will be thrown into chaos, maybe even overseas. Whether people admit it or not, Shaolin has long been the pillar that kept the unruly martial world somewhat balanced.
With Shaolin gone, the righteous path was suddenly missing its big shade tree—everyone was left feeling anxious and exposed. Of course, anxiety brought ambition too. When the good guys take a hit, the villains naturally get their time in the sun.
The wise saw danger in Shaolin’s fall, thinking, "If the lips are gone, the teeth will freeze," and rallied together. But in a world this big, you get all kinds—most folks in the martial world are the "hit first, ask questions later" type.
With Shaolin down and fewer nagging monks around, plenty of people were itching to let loose for once. Folks like that were everywhere.
—But let’s set those consequences aside for now; they haven’t happened yet.
As the first witnesses to this martial arts earthquake, No One Under Heaven was on high alert, investigating everything. Time was tight, everyone racing to find clues. The great fire turned Shaolin to ashes, but there were still plenty of traces left. With so many people involved and the chaos so widespread, there was no way to clean up every last mess.
Plus, judging by the evidence, whoever did it had a "I don’t even care if you notice" attitude. Add in the Mongol army’s movements and all the clues, and it looked like the destruction of Shaolin was the work of official Yuan-Mongol forces—or at least someone deeply tied to them.
From the traces, it was clear not all Shaolin monks were killed. Some died in battle, some were captured, some escaped. The Scripture Vault was half-looted, half-burned, now totally destroyed. The alchemy room was a mess—bottles smashed, more stolen. Of all the Shaolin buildings, only the stone stele at the gate and the big fireproof furnace survived intact. Everything else, statues and all, was rubble.
Seeing every familiar tree and blade of grass reduced to rubble, Zhang Junbao’s eyes filled with tears. At the main gate, he knelt and bowed to the ruins, reciting prayers for a long time.
According to Buddhist custom, monks are cremated after passing away. Everyone helped with the funerals for Jueyuan and the Laughing Monk. The flames roared, bodies turned to ash, and Zhang Junbao knelt and prayed again for a long time.
So, a whole day passed. According to Sylvia Shadows’ report, the Mongol army was already close. An army of at least ten thousand was sweeping in, searching for something. The southern route was locked down so tight, even a mouse would get frisked. If anything seemed off, they’d hack it to bits—no mercy. They hadn’t found their real target yet, but they’d killed plenty of Song spies and border smugglers along the way.
With things like this, staying at Mount Song was no longer an option. Even if they weren’t afraid of a fight, they had to think about the future. The two bosses made a quick decision—they’d move out and leave Fengteng at once.
"Head west, slip through the weakest checkpoint, then circle around and head south," Yang Qi said, tracing a route on the map and tapping a spot. "If things get really bad, we’ll lay low here for a while."
Everyone crowded around for a look. The place Yang Qi pointed to was none other than Mount Zenith.
Mount Zenith, Tomb of the Living Dead, the Ancient Tomb Sect’s Jade Maiden Heart Sutra. As for this truly mutually beneficial dual-cultivation technique—one that balanced yin and yang, water and fire, and required perfect harmony—Yang Qi had been eyeing it for ages.