There was a short moment of silence after Yao Jun's question rang out, only a select few of the people in the room actually understanding what he was talking about most. Most of the people in the room didn't even know who Yao Jun was, they only stayed silent because of the display of power he had just shown them, wondering what was going to happen now.

An elderly man clad in the robes of the Yao clan sent a quick glance at the 15 people who had reached the late stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm. Noticing that they were just as confused as them, the elderly man decided to take advantage of the situation to make the 15 people have a favorable opinion of him. He stood up from his seat, casting a stern glare at Yao Jun and opening his mouth.

"Listen here, you shou...!"

The man didn't get to finish his sentence, Yao Jun's eyes landing on him. The moment Yao Jun's gaze landed on him, the man felt a chilly feeling on his throat, a thin line of blood appearing out of nowhere. The man started to tremble, touching his throat and feeling the cut that had appeared there. He didn't doubt that if the cut had been just a bit deeper, if he had continued to talk for a bit longer, his life would have been forfeit. Yao Jun swept the room with his eyes once more, making sure that everyone understood that his next words were directed at all of them.

"I have fought and struggled for quite some time just to get back here so that I could see my wife, best friend, and family again. And yet, now that I have finally gotten a chance to return, neither my wife, nor my family, nor my best friend are here. So as you can probably guess, my mood is at the lowest it has ever been right now. If any of you try to speak, and your words are not about the whereabouts of my wife or family, then I do not guarantee your safety."

The elderly man gave a few shaky nods of his head, stumblingly sitting down and lowering his head in an attempt to hide. He felt like cursing himself for his stupidity. He tried to have the 15 strong cultivators see him in a favorable light but had instead poked at a sleeping dragon, nearly causing it to explode. Yao Jun took his eyes off the man and was just about to turn to the 15 strongest cultivators when one of them let out a snort.

"Do you think we don't exist? Are you not a bit too arrogant?"

The cultivator that spoke up was one of the 15, a blue-skinned man with seaweed-like hair who was from the Primordial Sea clan. He had been on this planet for quite some time already and had gotten used to being treated like a god. Even when he was in his own clan he had a rather high standing thanks to his cultivation, he was just beneath an Earthly Deity. With that being the case, how could he stand someone like Yao Jun, a person with lower cultivation, acting with such arrogance?

But the man didn't see the smirk that appeared on the faces of the two strong cultivators from the World Tree clan the moment his snort sounded out. The man didn't receive an immediate response from Yao Jun, so he furrowed his eyebrows and called out again, clearly, he was a very impatient person.

"Oy, are you not going to an...!"

This time Yao Jun followed up on the words he had just spoken. He vanished from the spot where he had just stood, none of the people in the room able to follow his movements. He appeared at the side of the man who had just spoken, grabbing onto his head and slamming it into the floor with such force that the golden tiles shattered into tiny fragments. He slammed the man's head into the floor two more times before another one of the strong cultivators, a man from the Final Fire clan, managed to shout out.

"How dare y...!"

Before the man got to finish his shout, his words became garbled, blood pouring out from his mouth. The shadows that his own clothing and hair cast had grown into thin spears that pierced through the man, turning him into a pincushion and killing him nearly instantly. Yao Jun slammed the head of the Primordial Sea clan man into the ground several more times, only stopping when his face had become completely unrecognizable, no more than a bloody mess.

Yao Jun let go of the man's head, storing both him and the man from the Final Fire clan into his God Gate, saving their bodies so that he could either feed them to his Demonic beasts or cultivate the body cultivation technique he had just acquired. He then cast his gaze onto the remaining 13 strong cultivators.

"Did my words sound like a joke to you?"

A chill ran down the spines of everyone in the room. In just a short second, two of the strongest people there had died, not able to put up the slightest fight. Yao Jun was someone who could fight and kill Earthly Deities, anyone else who could do the same at his cultivation level was already taking part in the Ascending Dragon competition, there would be no such person here. And because of this, none of these people were a threat to him.

The bodies of the 13 remaining strong cultivators tensed up, the thoughts of everyone but the two from the World Tree clan starting to race, trying to figure out the identity of the man in front of them. Yao Jun took their silence as a sign that they understood his words and then cast his gaze onto the two from the World Tree clan, their tall bodies and elongated features standing out quite a bit, even when compared to the strange people from the other clans.

"You seem to know me?"

He had heard one of them call his name when he kicked down the door, calling him Bloodstained Yao Jun. Could Leylan have told them about him? But Arthurius had said that Yao Jun had to keep his relationship with the World Tree clan hidden, so why would any of them tell anyone else about him? The two people, a man with brown hair and a woman with emerald-green hair, quickly gave Yao Jun a bow, the man speaking up.

"We do. I am Mardon and this is my cousin, Mariam. The Young Masters have told us about you, told us that we should aid you if we ever were to encounter you. They have told us quite a bit about your achievements, especially your most recent ones. They also told us about the title you earned thanks to your participation in the war, Bloodstained Yao Jun."

The titles Yao Jun had been given by the enemies during the war were actually Bloodstained Black and Bloodstained Blade, mostly because of the fact that they didn't know his name. But after Peyton learned of his identity, the titles were turned into one, Bloodstained Yao Jun. Some considered this title unimportant, as it belonged to someone who had gained it by participating in a war of the lowest level. But those who knew the truth knew that the holder of this title was someone who could only be called terrifying.

And Mardon and Mariam were exactly such people, people who had been told the truth by Leylan, the young master of the World Tree clan. After the start of the Ascending Dragon competition, Leylan had been checking the total rankings quite a bit, checking for any cultivators among the billions of contestants that they might be able to pull over to their clan after the competition.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

And it was during this search that he happened to spot Yao Jun's name, starting to pay attention to it from time to time. And since he was paying attention to Yao Jun's name, he was able to see the swift rise of Yao Jun's rank, his name quickly reaching the middle part of the rankings.

Leylan knew quite a bit about this tournament, so he knew that there was only one way for a person's rank to rise so quickly, killing either Demonic beasts or cultivators who had reached the Earthly Deity realm. Upon realizing this, how could Leylan not be shocked? When Yao Jun left them he hadn't even reached the Immortal Rebirth realm. But now he was already killing Earthly Deities? Just what had he been up to after leaving, just how fast had his strength increased?

Leylan swiftly told his siblings about what he had learned, all of them spreading the information amongst their fellow clan members, telling them to aid Yao Jun if they were to ever meet him. Because of this, unlike the rest of the cultivators here, Mardon and Mariam knew that they were facing someone who could be considered an Earthly Deity, a being far above them. Yao Jun nodded his head after hearing their report, somewhat guessing what Leylan had told them.

"I see. Do you know anything about the disappearance of my family and wife?"

He didn't really care about Leylan telling others about him. After all, Leylan knew very little about Yao Jun, he didn't even know that Yao Jun was from this planet. Well, not yet at least, he would probably learn about it after this. Mardon and Mariam quickly deepened their bow, swiftly responding.

"Forgive us, but we don't know anything about that. We didn't even know that this was your home planet. Had we known, I am certain that the Young Masters would never have sent us here."

Yao Jun gave a slight nod of his head, turning his gaze away from the two, his eyes turning towards Wan Yi, Lin Ren, and the Yang siblings. But just as he turned his head, the wind all around him turned violent. Blades of wind, spears of stone, orbs of fire, even sabers of compressed gravity all flew at him, aiming to kill him while his guard was lowered.

Yao Jun gave these attacks a disinterested glance, his eyes landing on the four people that had launched the attacks, two men and two women. One pair of them came from the Merged Heaven clan while the other pair came from the Endless Abyss sect. They watched with tensed expressions, hoping their attacks would be enough.

But then Yao Jun vanished in front of their very eyes, appearing in front of the pair from the Endless Abyss sect with a slight ripple running through the surrounding space. He slashed out with his sword, cleanly cutting through the neck of the man and then slightly changing the trajectory of his attack, his sword going through the woman's head, cutting it in horizontally at the nose.

He then turned his head slightly and vanished again, the rumbling sound of lightning ringing out as he moved so fast that none in the room were able to see him. He stopped in front of the pair from the Merged Heaven clan, his sword vanishing from his grasp as he punched out with all his might, shattering the chests of the two people.

The man died instantly, his heart pierced by the shattered pieces of his ribs, but the woman managed to cling to life, her body clearly altered using some defensive Demonic beast. Her legs gave out beneath her, so she fell backward and landed on her back, letting out heavy breaths. Yao Jun took a step forward and raised his right leg, and ignoring the begging gaze of the woman, he stomped her head into the ground, crushing it like an over-ripe melon.

A cold shiver once again ran down the spines of the people in the room. Cold and calm, strong and merciless, that was the only way they could describe Yao Jun. The people who had some plans of launching attacks when he lowered his guard quickly threw away those plans, they could only wait and see what he was going to do.

Some tried to send out messages, reporting back to their clans or the other people they had on this planet, but Yao Jun didn't bother with them. He had used his law of space to violently distort the space around this entire building, no messages would be able to penetrate that distorted space, no one in the outside world would be able to know what went down here.

After putting away the four bodies, Yao Jun turned around again, his eyes landing on Wan Yi and the three others. They hadn't changed much over the years, Wan Yi still had her silky black hair and blue eyes, a few black scales covering her arms and a bit of the edge of her face. The black lizard tail growing out behind her had grown somewhat longer, and her two black feathery wings had also grown somewhat larger.

Yang Long, the brother of Yang Yuhuan, had grown a bit taller, now standing at a little over two meters in height. His body was burly and covered in muscles, his green eyes still looked as piercing as ever, his golden hair had been cut just before it reached the shoulders and his already heavily scarred body had gained a few new scars.

Yang Yuhuan hadn't grown much, still only around 1.70 meters in height. Her body had become a bit more curvaceous and enticing, her blue eyes containing a calmer and more mature charm than before, her golden hair almost resembling the sun as it seemed to shimmer a little under the light.

Lin Ren had changed a bit over the years, his tanned skin growing a bit paler and his previously muscular but slim body had become a bit less muscular. His eyes were still deep black, a relaxed and carefree look in them, and his previously shoulder-length gray hair had now grown all the way down to his waist. Yao Jun calmed down slightly as he looked at them, a faint smile appearing on his face.

"It's been a while since we last saw each other, hasn't it? Do you know anything about Luo'er, Yantian, and my parents?"

After Yao Jun was forced off this planet, Guo Luo should have spent most of her time with Wan Yi and the others, working in the organization they built, Titan's Gate. They should know what might have happened to them, where they might have gone. His heart managed to calm down a little when he saw Wan Yi and the others nod their heads, their expressions showing the worst situation that Yao Jun feared hadn't happened. Yao Jun gave a relieved nod of his head, letting out a breath.

"Good. We can talk about that and catch up later, I just need to finish up here."

Yao Jun turned back to Mardon and Mariam, his faint smile disappearing as his expression grew colder again. The two tensed up, awaiting the inevitable orders.

"Tell Leylan that I don't want anyone on this planet, there is nothing here for any of you. You can also tell him that if he ignores me and you continue to pry around on this planet, causing chaos and acting as you please, then I will ignore our previous relationship and acting as I please. By now, you should know exactly what that means. Also, hand me one of those flying ships, you can tell Leylan that I took it from you."

This was his home planet, the place where he had been born. This was one of the few places where he would not allow anyone to wreak havoc. As for the flying ship he was commandeering, he had plans for it later on. Mardon and Mariam could only nod their heads with somewhat bitter smiles, wondering how Leylan would react. Yao Jun then turned to look at all the other cultivators in the room, his Qi starting to move.

"Now then, you all need to forget what you have seen and heard here."

Du Xiao and Little Gray knew what Yao Jun meant when he said those words. It was time for them to use their poison and mental energy to wipe the memories of everyone in this room, changing them slightly into a story that suited their needs. They had done this once before, shortly after they left the World Tree clan, so they were not strangers to this procedure.

The cultivators wanted to protest, but in the face of Yao Jun's power, there was nothing they could do. Yao Jun teamed up with Du Xiao and Little Gray, wiping and altering the memories of everyone except for Mardon and Mariam. The new memories told a tale about how there was nothing on this planet, the seal had been broken by a creature that was wandering through the Hollow Waste, feeding on the energy of the seals. As for the dead cultivators, the new memories said that they were killed by the other clans or sects after a battle broke out.

Thanks to Yao Jun's mental energy and strong Qi, the illusions that became the new memories looked and felt incredibly life-like and real. So even if someone searched their memories, unless they were quite a bit stronger than Yao Jun, they would not be able to discover anything amiss.

There were other cultivators on this planet whose memories he also had to alter, but thanks to his law of space he could move around quickly enough to finish it all within half a day. He left the remaining cultivators in the hall to Little Gray and Du Xiao, stepping through space and starting on the other cultivators on this planet, not leaving a single one with their original memories intact. The spatial scrambling array was one of the first things he crushed as he began his rampage, so it was no longer capable of preventing him from teleporting as he pleased.