"Not yet, Chief." The few elders shook their heads. "They are demanding the release of their chief and elders." "In their dreams!" Luo Qi barked out a cruel laugh.

He had captured those fellows with the intention of forcing them to submit to him. Why would he release them?

"They don't seem to know pain at all." A streak of murderous intent flashed across Luo Qi's eyes. "Tell them that I'm going to kill one person for every day of delay. I'll continuing killing until every one of their elders and their chief are dead. It won't matter if the sect still refuses to submit to my rule then."

He seemed a little crazed and unreasonable.

He didn't care for patience at all. He didn't want to wait anymore.

"Chief, that might...make the situation worse." Luo Long hesitated for a moment.

He firmly supported Luo Qi in his endeavors but the method that he had voiced was a little excessive. They were already testing the limits of the sects by capturing their men and threatening them into submission. © 2024.

Killing their prisoners would incur the true wrath of those sects.

Nothing good would come out of incurring the wrath of the masses.

"Isn't it bad enough now?" Luo Qi stared at him. "Tianlian Sect has its eyes sight on a greater goal. We can't afford to show anyone mercy. No one knows what's going to happen to our world in the mountain. There's no more time. Don't you understand that?"

Luo Long nodded. "I do."

"Stop wasting time then!" said Luo Qi. "Make my orders known to the rest and send the other sects a final warning. If they don't submit to us, we will simply have to destroy them all."

Madness colored his eyes as he exuded an aura of absolute power and dominance.

The elders exchanged a look with one another silently before nodding profusely.

They could sense that Luo Qi had gone completely mad.

They had agreed to form an alliance with the other sects at first because it had been a great opportunity for Tianlian Sect.

But the idea of seizing control over the other sects had popped up in Luo Qi's head after that alliance had ended. He had poisoned the sect leaders and elders of the other sects and made them captives of Tianlian Sect. They had gone along with it and even thought that it had been a great idea.

But what Luo Qi was going to do now was too much. He was willing to resort to anything to achieve his goal.

"Elder Luo Long, won't you talk to the

chief again? We've done the worst that we could by threatening the other sect's. They'll fight us to the death if we kill their sect leaders.

What would happen to Tianlian Sect then?"

"That's right. The other sects aren't pushovers. Without a bargaining chip, they'll join forces and attack us. When that happens, we'll..."

Luo Long frowned, then waved his hand silently and left.

One of his men approached him when he got back to his study.

"The butler is dead."

"What did you just say?" Luo Long frowned. "What happened?"

"The chief suspected the butler of poisoning his food, so he killed him."

Luo Long's pupils contracted. Had Luo Qi truly gone out of his mind?

He couldn't believe that the chief had killed the butler.

That was the man who had cared for him for decades. How could Luo Qi suspect him of anything untoward?

What about Luo Long? What might Luo Qi do to him?

"There's another thing. Elder Huang

seemed to have misplaced the

Tranquilizing Dust and was

punished by the chief. He's not

allowed to eat and is still kneeling in

the ancestral hall right now."

Elder Huang was the oldest elder in Tianlian Sect and could be considered as Luo Qi's senior. How could he bear to punish the old man?

Luo Qing's fingers curled into fists.

Something wasn't right. Luo Qi was behaving strangely. He wasn't. listening to anyone's advice and had locked himself up in a worldof his own. He did whatever he wanted.

"I have no grounds for protest if whatever he's doing is for the sake of the sect, but it's obvious that he's not exactly himself."

Emotions flickered across Luo Long's eyes. He wasn't sure what had come over Luo Qi but the series of actions that the latter had committed were worrying both Luo Long and the other elders. "I'll speak to the chief." Luo Long rose to his feet and left.