Yin Long's face might be covered by a demonic mask, but in the eyes of Lan Yun, there was not a single thing capable of covering up his heroic and majestic aura. A simple metal sword appeared in his grasp, an overwhelming sense of sharpness radiating off of his body and piercing into Lan Yun's soul. No matter how often she felt it, the dauntless aura he radiated as he prepared would always leave her breathless. He was a peerless sword, one that should not be contained in the sheath that was the Lang clan, a sword born to pierce the moons themselves.

Lan Yun quickly sucked in a deep breath to focus her mind, they were still on a mission so now was not the time to get lost in her own imagination. She donned a blue mask shaped like a grinning demon and drew out her own weapon, a two-headed axe that was nearly a meter and a half long. The group of three swiftly arrived in front of the five-layered pagoda, Yin Long giving a simple order.

"Seal it. Up to about 60 meters tall should be enough, there don't seem to be any windows or exits above that point. But just in case, weaken the earth within 100 meters behind the wall, that way we can easily know when someone has escaped."

The pagoda was nearly 400 meters tall, four times taller than the area that Yin Long could cover with his senses. But the last window or exit he detected on the pagoda was at the 40-meter mark so he made the assumption that there probably weren't too many more windows or exits on the higher floors. According to the report Yin Long had received, the upper floors were all used for storage and banking, making it somewhat reasonable that such a large pagoda wouldn't have more windows. Of course, this was all under the assumption that the report got everything correct, which Yin Long doubted quite heavily.

Lan Yun nodded her head and gave the earth a heavy stomp, a surge of earthen brown Qi billowing out from her body and sinking into the earth beneath her. Lan Yun had been picked up as a child by Yin Long's mother and was then groomed to become part of the Lang clan's shadow, her talent was a touch above average so the years of cultivation had pushed her to the 8th Mortal Door, she was far from as weak as she looked.

With her Qi flowing into the surroundings, the earth all around the pagoda started to writhe and twist, the earth behind Yin Long's group turning more porous and weakening drastically as a result. Earthen walls started to rise up around the pagoda, but the wooden doors to the building were thrown open before the walls had the chance to grow more than three meters. A young girl who looked to be about 16 or 17 desperately ran out from the building, waving her arms in the air while calling out to Yin Long and Lan Yun.

"Wait, please wait! I'm not with them, I'm just a normal worker! Please let me leave first!"

From the girl's words, it was easy to come to the conclusion that the people within the pagoda had realized that the ones attacking them knew that they were actually from the Tao clan. Lan Yun's brows furrowed slightly when faced with the young girl, but Yin Long's sword cut through the air before she even had the chance to ask how to proceed. A thin silver light cut through the air and sliced through the neck of the girl while she was still almost 60 meters away from them, her head dropping to the ground while her body collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

Yin Long stepped forward while Lan Yun was still somewhat caught off guard, walking over to the corpse while Jin Wang followed right by his side. Yin Long bent forward and pried open the left hand of the girl, revealing a grape-sized jade orb. He picked up the orb and insert a bit of his Qi before tossing it through the now open entrance of the pagoda, a loud explosion immediately sounding out from within as crimson flames shot out from the entrance and rose towards the sky. The flames lit up Yin Long's mask as he turned his head slightly, only his pitch-black eyes visible as he glanced at Lan Yun.

"In both battle and survival, there is no room for mercy, not towards yourself and not towards your enemy. Nor is there room for hesitation, otherwise you will lose your life. I already buried my parents, I will not bury anyone else."

Once again, Lan Yun found her breath getting caught in her throat. When Yin Long first attacked she slightly wanted to curse herself for hesitating due to the girl's young age, but now she thought that it was definitely worth it just to hear him say those words. Lan Yun quickly caught her breath again and gave a strong nod of her head, the earthen walls rapidly rising higher and higher until they formed a nearly 70-meter tall wall around the entire pagoda.

Yin Long started walking forward again the moment he finished his words so he had already stepped through the now ruined entrance of the pagoda by the time the walls finished rising up. The inside of the pagoda was an utter mess, what once looked like a normal reception room with a door on each side of the room had been reduced to a scorched mess where scattered body parts and ruined furniture littered the floor.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

There had been about 16 people in this room as the girl ran out the door, but now only a single one just barely clung on to life, everything below his navel torn off by the explosion. The man tried to speak, but the only thing that left his mouth was blood, crushed organs, and pulverized bones. Yin Long only spared the man, who glared at him with eyes filled with hate, a single glance before he turned away.

"You shouldn't have tried to go against the Lang clan."

Jin Wang lunged forward when Yin Long finished his words, his fangs sinking into the man's throat and tearing out a large chunk that he then swiftly swallowed. Lan Yun entered the pagoda right after, having finished setting up the wall so that there would be no people fleeing. With her arriving, Yin Long raised his head slightly to look at the ceiling, which had gotten a large hole blown into it thanks to the earlier explosion. He then lowered his head to look at the floor, which only carried a few scratches after the explosion.

"I'll leave the upper floors to the two of you. There's a nasty bit of energy gathering below so I'm guessing that whatever is below is their true goal here. Don't forget, no mercy, no survivors."

Yin Long headed directly for the door on the left of the room once he finished his words, the door was just like the floor in that it only had a few scratches on it even after the fiery explosion. Lan Yun gave a strong nod of her head, her gaze following Yin Long for a bit as he opened the door and descended the wooden stairs that were located behind the door. Jin Wang responded much more lazily, sauntering towards the nearly shattered door on the right of the room, blood still dripping from his snout.

Yin Long's left hand traced the stone wall at his side, it was completely dry but exceedingly chilly, he had probably already descended to below the earthen disc and into the lake beneath the city. The reports he received didn't state anything about the Deepsea Guild having any staircase or rooms that led into the lake like this, what should have been behind the sturdy door should have been a room containing a single well. Clearly, not even Jiu Meiyu was able to acquire every bit of information about their target, not when it involved people from a different clan.

Yin Long's brows furrowed slightly as he continued to descend the wooden staircase, the energy brewing beneath him was growing stronger bit by bit. The energy had not just a somewhat sinister air to it, but it also felt somewhat cadaveric, it almost felt as if Yin Long was moving through the interior of a corpse.

The stairs continued downwards for nearly 500 meters, stopping in front of a wooden door. The cadaveric energy coming from beyond the door was so potent here that it had distorted the wood used to build the door, not only turning it black in color but also covering it in small blisters filled with puss, as if it was a living thing.

Yin Long's eyes grew solemn as he looked at the door, or more specifically at what was lurking behind the door. His senses could see all the furniture in the room, all the corpses, he could even see the lone cultivator at the 1st Immortal Door realm that was calmly waiting for him beyond the door. But none of these were the reason for his gaze growing solemn. No, his gaze grew solemn due to the thing within the room that he couldn't see, a tiny area that warped and crushed his senses the moment they got close, preventing him from seeing what was there. The door opened without Yin Long touching it, a voice seeping out from the room as the door slid open.

"Come, Nameless killer, it was fate that we meet."

Yin Long's eyes narrowed slightly, his Qi roiling around within his body as he stepped through the door and entered a large stone room. The room was nearly 500 meters in each direction but only contained a single bookshelf and a desk, the rest of the empty space was covered in corpses that were in varying states of decay, some so fresh that they were still dripping with blood while others had already turned to bone.

Yin Long's gaze slid over the tanned and muscular middle-aged man with needle-like black hair, landing on a pea-sized black spot on the floor next to him. All the blood in the room flowed into this tiny black spot, and all the cadaveric energy gushed forth from this spot, seeping into Yin Long's soul and bringing with it a dreadful chill. The muscular man followed Yin Long's gaze, a light sigh escaping his lips.

"A dreadful thing, isn't it? You can't even imagine the number of deaths that went into creating this opening. Thousands upon thousands, all gone for the sake of this tiny hole."

The muscular man tore his gaze away from the hole, a bead of sweat running down his temple. He stood up from his cross-legged position, all the corpses in the room suddenly flying to the side and clearing up the floor as they crashed into the wall and stacked up. The muscular man reached behind his back and drew forth the jagged greatsword that was sheathed on his back, continuing to talk with Yin Long.

"Oh, Nameless Assasin of the Lang clan, I am Tao Enlai, and just like you, I am the shadow of my clan. It was fate that we meet here, two shadows standing in front of the gate to true darkness. As a comrade from the same type of darkness, would you mind if I ask you a question? The stars above us that rule the provinces, that rule the dominions themselves, how is a man supposed to resist such power? How can a man possibly hope to stand in front of such majesty?"

The man, Tao Enlai looked deeply at Yin Long, his eyes glimmering with a dreadful conviction as the cadaveric energy that gushed out of the black hole started to seep into his body. He only gave Yin Long a few short seconds before he opened his mouth to answer his own question, the two men coincidentally answering at the same time.

"You can't, man cannot stand in front of the stars, he must bow and borrow power from somewhere else, no matter the price."

"If the stars are too oppressive to even stand in front of, then I will become a sun soaring high above the stars."