The vision gradually dissipated and the resplendent lotus became red snowflakes that fell to the ground with the white ones. The color and light of the surroundings returned to normal as the scenery was now tranquil and silent.
Wu Long stood as a wide area around him was filled with rubble from buildings as well as completely unrecognizable corpses. The spreading out of the swords in the third form of Heaven Transcending Lotus did not give the same result of complete disintegration as the first form which concentrated billions of cuts in an extremely compressed space, but the damage was still concentrated enough to make a building look like a pile of small pieces of rubble around the size of a human head. A human body would similarly be cut in pieces.
He looked at the only survivor, the decrepit old man. However bad his foundation and skills were, he was still a Core Formation Realm practitioner, so the protective Spiritual Qi around his body was able to alleviate part of the damage since this was a wide-scale move, and was not used to its full potential due to the limitations of Wu Long’s current capabilities.
The old man nevertheless had deep gashes all over his body and one in particular that cut most of his waist, leaving only the spine and the area around it to connect the upper and lower halves.
He gasped with hoarse, ragged, struggling breath as a whistling sound came with each one as his respiratory system was now not completely intact.
His eyes contained shock, horror, as well as deep hate. Everything he ever built or accomplished was vanquished just like this by this young man.
“Wh-…~hiih…who…~hiiih…are…khu..khuk…you…~hiih?”
He asked while ragged and broken breath disrupted his words while Wu Long closed their distance. He could not run or defend, as his body would not endure even a little force exertion. He could only watch and try to speak, blood seeping continuously from the corner of his dried-up lips.
“Hmm, fake or not, a Core Formation Realm is a Core Formation Realm”
Wu Long ignored his words and only introspectively said as he raised the sword in his right hand horizontally to the left side. The old man seemed to want to say something else, unwillingness and fear of death gripping him to the last second, but Wu Long simply made a horizontal slash, and the head of the oldest and most powerful Sect Ancestor of the Supreme Master Pavilion fell to the ground, followed by his body not long after.
The remaining disciples, some lower-level sect protectors and retainers who gathered to see the aftermath in the distance looked a bit dazed as the titan who held up the heavens in their sect lost his head so easily, and after a few moments, one of them ran. The first one broke the sting of tension and all of them moved in quick succession. There were some whose legs failed them and they simply fell to their knees on the spot with listless expressions, some who ran while stumbling and falling, and some who just run as fast as they could.
There was no longer a sect here as of this moment.
Wu Long rushed off and started to hunt down any remaining sect elders or higher-level protectors. He did not bother with the others, as there was not only him who had business with lust cultivators.
The outer walls were constructed too high for anyone to try and jump off, so the ones who ran had to pass through the ruins of the gates. But right in the center of those ruins stood a beautiful figure.
Shen Min stood with both her hands holding chakrams and saw a crowd fleeing in this direction. Soon, a new carnage started at the gates as the remnants of the sect tried to either bypass or brute force their way through. There was insurance in the form of a trapping formation, but she wanted to try and stop them all at the gates, and her versatile fighting style that allowed for mid-range attacks helped her do just that.
There were two reasons Wu Long did not just massacre the sect head-on with full firepower right from the beginning and instead wore them down, grinding them level by level.
The first one was emotional torment. Lust cultivators were known for relishing in the torment of their cultivation furnaces, so at some point, as he got more familiar with their traits, it became Wu Long’s habit to give them a taste of their own medicine while he dealt with them.
The second one was that Shen Min was outside the gates waiting for the moment he gave a signal with the giant crimson lotus, which she did not fully understand until she actually saw one blooming, as it could be seen even from outside the sect.
He wanted to grind down the power of the sect to the level she could handle, so he did not let the fight escalate to higher levels too fast. If he did not manipulate them into trying to wear him down they would have either started panicking and run off altogether or met him head-on with all of their elites, and when he killed the top the rest would pour toward Shen Min. If he did not grind down the numbers enough before that, especially the Revolving Qi Realm practitioners, she could be possibly overwhelmed. 𝒷𝒹𝓸𝓿𝓁.𝒸ℴ𝓶
Shen Min was in the Revolving Qi Realm, and she could handle anyone in Qi Manifestation Realm and below with relative ease even if they were coming in large numbers, but a Revolving Qi Realm practitioner, if he cooperated with others could have potentially given her a harder time since she had to deal with large numbers of enemies and opponents at her level joining in would be too taxing. So Wu Long did not allow any Revolving Qi Realm practitioners to approach her and specifically hunted them down.
There were several uses for the giant formation enveloping this whole territory, the main one being the trapping function, but there was also a detection one, that spread Wu Long’s spiritual sense throughout the whole sect, as he constantly kept track of each and every member.
It was this that allowed him to play with the sect to such an extent, as he constantly knew the exact distribution of enemy forces. The formation also spread his presence throughout along with his spiritual sense, so any detection skill or formation would recognize him to be everywhere around at the same time.
As their numbers decreased it became easier to distinguish more details other than a vague position, the only thing he could discern in the beginning. Now that their numbers have dropped so much he felt even the weakest aura of women who were used as cultivation furnaces since there were only leftovers of the once numerous members.
What he was fairly surprised about, was that there was still a rather powerful aura deep in the sect, belonging to a woman, and there was something peculiar about it.
When he made sure that there were no Revolving Qi Realm practitioners left, he headed to the location of the mysterious aura.
When he approached the area of interest he was in a secluded place inside the deepest part of the sect, and there was only one large mansion. As he entered it he walked the empty halls until he saw a few sect disciples hurriedly dragging out a bound beautiful woman who was struggling against them. It seemed they wanted to escape but not before they took her away.
When they saw Wu Long they froze, but he did not look at them. His attention was on the woman as his eyes narrowed.
‘So that’s what it was’
Wu Long now understood why her aura felt weird. She was heavily drugged, thus the fluctuations of her aura were in disarray. Despite that fact, she was still struggling against the people around her, which showed not only strong mental fortitude but the strength of her cultivation base as well.
He was slightly intrigued now, as he could tell that she was still a maiden. He was in the town right outside the sect for quite some time and did not notice anyone going in, so she had to have been in the sect for at the very least a week. If no one cultivated using her during such a long time there had to be a reason.
She was still struggling against her captors, as Wu Long slightly moved the sword in his hand. The people who tried to drag her away all lost their heads. He did not remove her shackles yet as she was not completely in the right state of mind under the influence of whatever they used to drug her, struggling purely on instinct, and could possibly harm herself if she was freed of them now.
He approached her and gently tapped his fingers on her neck as they were covered in Spiritual Qi. A jolt went through her and she fell unconscious, as he caught her soft and fragrant sensual body.
In this already destroyed sect, Wu Long unexpectedly found a pure and beautiful flower.