Chapter 37: Tranquility and Madness
Blood Battle Valley.
Emanuel and Fuerhan were together.
"I have a bad feeling," Fuerhan said, frowning.
"Father, what's wrong?" Emanuel quickly asked.
Fuerhan said, "Look at how much the Patriarch values the Sovereign's messenger. He's probably trying to win him over, given how difficult our Four Divine Beasts clan's situation is right now. If that's the case... then they probably won't punish Linley."
"Won't punish?" Emanuel grew anxious.
He had always wanted to deal with Linley, but this time, he had tried to steal a chicken only to lose the rice, and even his strongest water-type water clone was destroyed. This unwillingness and anger naturally shifted onto Linley.
He didn't have the strength to deal with Linley, so he wanted to use other methods.
"How can they not punish him?" Emanuel pressed. "The Grand Elder already agreed."
"Shut up." Fuerhan frowned and barked.
Emanuel immediately dared not speak. Fuerhan took a deep breath and silently pondered for a moment. The room was silent. After a long while, Fuerhan spoke in a low voice, "I think it's unlikely the clan will punish Linley. We'll have to rely on ourselves."
"What method?" Emanuel quickly asked.
"There are plenty of methods." Fuerhan narrowed his eyes and sneered coldly. "Someone saved Linley this time. I don't believe he'll be so lucky to have someone save him again."
"Father, you mean?" Emanuel smiled.
"Which elder in the clan don't I know? Setting a trap for him to fall into isn't hard. There will be plenty of opportunities!" Fuerhan said confidently. "During battle, we can make some small moves. Hmph! When fighting fiercely against a strong opponent, a slight disturbance can be fatal!"
"Especially when all my side's Six Star Fiends are dead. Without witnesses, we could even directly ambush him," Fuerhan sneered. "Even if he alone cries out for justice, who would believe him?"
Emanuel's face immediately lit up with a smile.
"A descendant like him, worthy of the ancestor's Azure Dragon Ring?" Fuerhan scoffed. "Even with the Azure Dragon Ring, he's only an ordinary Seven Star Fiend. If I had that Azure Dragon Ring... I would be far more useful to the clan than him!" They flew back together. They certainly wouldn't expect Fuerhan to dare ambush and kill him. Under normal flight conditions, Linley also maintained his human form... If Fuerhan really ambushed him.
Linley alone cried out for justice, with no witnesses, what then?
Fuerhan would insist it was an enemy kill. There would be no way to prove otherwise.
"Fuerhan. Emanuel." A voice came through.
"Mother is here." Fuerhan quickly stood up, and Emanuel respectfully stood to the side.
With a creak, the hall door opened. The Grand Elder, wearing a silver mask, walked in directly. She looked at them coldly and said, "Fuerhan, Emanuel, the matter of punishing Linley is dropped."
Emanuel was startled inwardly: "Just as Father predicted, but... if not now, there will be plenty of opportunities later."
Carrying out missions meant walking the line between life and death.
If one's companion secretly sabotaged them, the chance of survival was too low.
"From today onward, Linley will leave Blood Battle Valley and no longer take on Blood Battle Valley missions," the Grand Elder said coldly.
Fuerhan and Emanuel were stunned.
They were dumbfounded!
"Mother, how can this be?" Fuerhan quickly said. "Our clan's rule is a rotation every thousand years. Linley hasn't been in Blood Battle Valley long at all, nowhere near a thousand years."
"Yes, the clan's rules can't be broken," Emanuel said urgently.
If Linley wasn't taking missions in Blood Battle Valley but staying in the Celestial Sacrifice Mountains, they couldn't make him die... After all, private fighting was not allowed within the Celestial Sacrifice Mountains.
"This is the decision of the four Patriarchs!" the Grand Elder said coldly.
Fuerhan and Emanuel were stunned by these words. A Patriarch was the leader of a clan. The joint order of the four Patriarchs was unchangeable!
From that day on, Linley no longer needed to go to Blood Battle Valley and could peacefully enjoy a tranquil life. Delia and Bebe were overjoyed when they heard the news... In tranquility, the days passed one by one. In the eyes of the Four Divine Beasts clan, Linley was the hope of connecting with the Violet Flame Sovereign!
Linley didn't know... in the eyes of the eight great clans, he was the greatest threat!
In front of Linley's house was a lawn, beside which was a stone table. A bottle of wine was placed on the stone table, and Linley was holding a book in his hands. All four of Linley's avatars were training, while his main body enjoyed the tranquility.
Delia walked out of the house, holding two plates of dishes in her hands. Seeing Linley reading, she smiled, walked over, and gently placed them on the stone table.
"Hmm?"
Linley suddenly smelled a delicious aroma. He looked into the plates and his eyes lit up. "Delia, wow, it smells amazing. Your cooking has improved a lot." As he spoke, he flipped his hand and produced a pair of chopsticks.
He immediately started tasting and praised while eating, "Not bad, not bad. The flavor is almost as good as the restaurants in the city."
"Far from it," Delia said, her face flushed with a smile. "Last time I went to the city, I bought a few books describing some dishes. The ingredients for these dishes were brought back by people who went to the city."
Delia sat across from him, resting her chin on her hand, watching Linley eat.
Linley ate and couldn't help but laugh.
"What are you grinning about?" Delia asked with a smile.
"I'm thinking!" Linley sighed. "Comprehending the laws of the universe, roaming the boundless hell... and in my spare time, reading some books, drinking good wine, and eating the delicious food my wife makes. This life is simply... perfect!" Linley laughed joyfully.
Delia also smiled.
"Linley, if you want to be this comfortable forever, you can," Delia said. "As long as you never go to Blood Battle Valley again. I always feel the Four Divine Beasts clan cares too much about face... If it were me, I would have ordered the clan to seal the mountains long ago. Everyone in the clan could live peacefully in the mountains. Why bother fighting the eight great clans like this?"
Linley put down his chopsticks.
"Alright, Delia," Linley said with a smile. "When people live, especially with eternal life, it's all about face. Especially clan honor, which is valued more than life itself. Unless absolutely necessary... the clan won't choose to seal the mountains and completely turtle up."
Delia smiled. "Whatever. At least you don't have to go to Blood Battle Valley anymore." In Delia's heart, she had no sense of belonging to the Four Divine Beasts clan. She only knew... as long as Linley was safe, that was enough.
"Hehe..." Linley laughed.
"Come on, you try it too. The flavor is really good," Linley said with a smile.
This kind of life passed in the blink of an eye for a hundred years. Delia and Linley were together, naturally not feeling lonely at all. She was always smiling and had learned to make one delicious dish after another. Linley was the lucky one, often getting to taste gourmet food.
As for Bebe...
He would occasionally stay with Linley, playing around with others from the Yulan lineage. But when bored, Bebe would still take the clan's transport and go to the city for a stroll.
In the main hall of the Four Divine Beasts in Blood Battle Valley, the four Patriarchs were gathered.
"Only a hundred years!" Gaisreyson said with a dark expression.
"Over the past hundred years, those eight great clans have gone mad! They don't care about casualties at all, wasting Sovereign power just to kill our people!" the White Tiger clan Patriarch said angrily.
"In this hundred years, our Vermillion Bird clan has lost three Elders. What about you?" the Vermillion Bird clan Patriarch said with a grim face.
"Our White Tiger clan has lost four Elders!" the White Tiger clan Patriarch said, his words full of anger. "Third brother, how about your Black Tortoise clan?"
The Black Tortoise clan Patriarch sighed softly. "Our Black Tortoise clan's losses are also significant. We've lost two Elders. And this is only a hundred years!"
"Big brother." The Vermillion Bird clan Patriarch looked at Gaisreyson.
"Our Azure Dragon clan has lost three Elders," Gaisreyson said with a sigh. "So, in just a hundred years, the Four Divine Beasts clan has lost a total of twelve Elders!"
According to the usual rate of losses in battle, losing twelve Elders would normally take a thousand years.
Now, it had happened in a hundred years.
"Those eight great clans have all gone mad," the Vermillion Bird clan Patriarch said angrily. "In this hundred years, every time they sent three or four Seven Star Fiends to attack together, and each time, one of them carried Sovereign power! They don't care about consuming Sovereign power; they just want to kill all our people."
"They're this crazy, but their losses are also significant," Gaisreyson said. "Our Azure Dragon clan alone killed four of their Elders."
"Our Vermillion Bird clan killed three."
The four Patriarchs each reported their results.
"In this thousand years, the eight great clans have suffered greater losses than us. They've lost fifteen Elders," Gaisreyson said.
"But their base is large," the Black Tortoise clan Patriarch said in a low, deep voice. "Since the death of the four ancestors, the Four Divine Beasts clan has lost nearly one hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends in total... Now, the surviving Seven Star Fiends among our four clans are only about a hundred. But what about them? Their Seven Star Fiends total over three hundred!"
Each of the eight great clans had roughly the same number of experts as the Azure Dragon clan.
In the early days, the Azure Dragon clan also had over sixty Seven Star Fiends.
The eight great clans originally had nearly five hundred Seven Star Fiends. After so many years of fighting, they had killed nearly one hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends from the Four Divine Beasts clan. They had also lost over a hundred themselves.
But with a larger base, the eight great clans still had over three hundred Seven Star Fiends! If they continued to wear each other down...
By the time the Four Divine Beasts clan's experts were exhausted, the enemy would still have over two hundred Elders. Moreover, the enemy also had many top-tier experts. The Patriarchs of the eight great clans were all extremely powerful figures!
"Crazy, crazy. They don't care about consuming Sovereign power, they don't care about the deaths of Seven Star Fiends. They've all gone mad!" the Black Tortoise clan Patriarch said unwillingly.
"What's going on? They weren't this crazy for over ten thousand years, so why have they gone mad in this last hundred years?" Gaisreyson couldn't understand.
How could the Patriarchs of the Four Divine Beasts clan know... that the eight great clans were so crazy, always sending three or four Elders together, first to ensure they could kill Linley if they encountered him.
Second, they wanted to speed things up! They didn't dare to delay, afraid that if they dragged it out, Linley might suddenly break through and become a Great Perfection Highgod that they would fear.
Although the Four Divine Beasts clan and the eight great clans had entered a state of extreme madness, the Celestial Sacrifice Mountains were still very peaceful. Linley lived a life detached from the world, and at the same time, his four avatars were constantly improving.
Two hundred years had passed since he withdrew from Blood Battle Valley.
In two hundred years, Linley's greatest progress was in his water-type divine clone, which could be described as advancing by leaps and bounds. His speed in comprehending the profound mysteries of the law was astonishing. It was even faster than his earth-type divine clone and wind-type divine clone.
Naturally, it was far faster than his slowest fire-type clone.
Now, his water-type divine clone had long reached the level of a Demigod and had comprehended three profound mysteries of the law. He was now comprehending the fourth... Actually, in detail, it wasn't too exaggerated. After the ancestral shrine baptism, Linley naturally understood one profound mystery.
His wind-type divine clone was also comprehending the sixth profound mystery of the law, but wind-type had a total of nine profound mysteries, making it the most troublesome.
As for his fire-type divine clone, it was still stuck on the third profound mystery, progressing the slowest.
"Ah!" A loud laugh rang out.
Linley, Delia, and Bebe were sitting around a table, eating and chatting happily.
Linley turned his head to look. The person walking over was Elder Garvey.
"Garvey's expression doesn't look good. He has something on his mind," Linley thought at a glance. For such an expert to let his worries show on his face, Elder Garvey must have encountered something major.
"Elder Garvey!" Bebe was the first to cheer. "Come over quickly! This is the first time my boss has ever cooked. Try it... It's so delicious it'll kill you!"
"Bebe." Linley couldn't help but feel his face flush.
He had followed the instructions in the book exactly, but the taste was worlds apart from Delia's cooking. Still, it was a bit of a stretch to say it would kill someone.