Three broken ribs, one completely shattered left arm, a massive gash on my right cheek, and one right arm that I'm still honestly surprised that it's still able to function. This was the result of forcing my way through the pyramid and all the way to the top.
The top of the pyramid had a glowing teleportation circle that I threw myself into, leaving the area and finding myself in a deep dark void that didn't seem to have an end.
My divine sense spread out as much as I could, and I managed to detect three people.
However, they were wounded.
Soon, something seemed to come surging my way.
"LING CAO RUN!" came the voice of the sect master, the urgency in that voice wasn't something to take lightly, but where the hell can I run?
What came my way was the man in the mask, although half of it was completely shattered, I could see the scowl of his lips from underneath the mask.
"Damn brat, how did you survive that!" he spoke as his hand was coming straight for my neck.
With my current condition, It was impossible for me to fight.
I took a step back, and used teleportation, which probably was not something very wise.
The teleportation caused the man in the mask to halt, "Void Walk! You know too many secrets of the Imperial Family. I cannot let you survive!" he then followed after me like a leech.
Suddenly a glowing light came surging forward, it was the sect master.
Half of his body seemed to be corroded by something.
But he was surging fast towards us.
"Stand down Titan! You'll accelerate your demise this way," spoke the masked man in a mocking tone.
The Sect Master didn't hesitate however or stop as he shot forward towards us.
The man in the mask managed to close the gap between us all too rapidly.
'The hell is all that talk about a place where we can't use Qi, he's using his full cultivation alright!' I cursed as I realized what was going on.
It only took a glance at the current form of the sect master to fully understand the story.
The sect master, known to be the Golden Titan, master of the Ancient Sect, and probably one of the strongest vessels of the Imperial family.
His sect was attacked by some sort of creatures that have plagued his disciples and are now weak. Then the Imperial Family sends in one of their own, to help the sect like they needed to go out of their way and care about this matter.
They asked for the Sect Master specifically, and the strongest elders of his sect to come to this journey, and then me. Why?
Simple, to get rid of all of us.
The sect master's arm is currently exposed to the same vile thing that had been latched on to me when I first came to this world and the same thing that's assaulting his sect.
Only this one is far more potent as the vile and evil Qi being emitted from it was not like anything I've seen before.
The wounds I've seen on Elder Wei and Elder Fu Tian were both from the back, meaning that they've been ambushed.
The wounds on the sect master were frontal, meaning that he confronted the Masked man.
The masked man was leading us all to a trap.
Just as the sect master arrived to where I and the masked man were, the latter aimed his arm at the sect master, causing a green jade circle around his arm to shine bright.
The moment that jade circlet shone, the sect master released an unholy scream of pain and agony.
"You can't fight back, Titan, no, you are no longer the Golden Titan, since that knowledge had been eaten away from you," the masked man smirked.
"You lowly… bastard," spoke the Sect Master through tight breaths.
"It is your fate, it has always been Titan, you're a servant to the throne, and the throne demands your service," he said and immediately arrived to my front.
I tried to teleport away but his arm released a powerful wave of law lines that forbade teleportation.
The man in the mask grabbed me by the throat and said, "You know, if you had agreed to give me this child, I would have taken him to the imperial family, though he might be a slave he'll be an imperial slave, that is far higher statue than even yours Titan."
I didn't want to speak, because you should never stop a villain while he is monologuing it'll always give you an opportunity to flip the tables.
"Why… are you doing this!" spoke the sect master.
"As you can see, the pet, that his Majesty had been taking care of seemed a bit hungry, and the host it used to reside within had completely perished, and that's why we need you," he said.
"If you wanted a host to that vile thing, there could have been better ways to get one, instead of infecting my whole sect! aren't we servants to the throne! What have we done wrong against the emperor!"
"Your existence Titan, you're far too powerful, too strong for your own good, you are too strong and your potential to grow seems limitless, thus, you must be taken care of in case you become a throne in the imperial path. Now, you'll serve the throne, though as nothing more than a host for the Emperor's pet," the Masked Man said.
The creature that was latching on to the Sect Master seemed to merge further and further with him, rapidly exhausting the sect master every second.
"And you, you could have given up in the pyramid, I had made sure to have you trapped there, enslaved for the purpose of the Empire, but you somehow managed to survive, which is more reason to think of you as a dangerous being, thus you too will be eliminated." Spoke the Masked Man to me.
"Let… the kid go, he did nothing wrong," the sect master said, "Don't you just need a host, I'm here," he said.
"That is a fact, but I don't need your permission, Titan, I already have you captured," the masked man said.
"Then I might as well self detonate and take you down with me!" he said and immediately the sect master's Qi began roiling within him.
"I cannot allow you to do that," the Masked Man said and pointed his bracelet once again at the sect master.
And this is why you should never interrupt villains.
As I was being grabbed by the neck, 'looking' completely harmless to the man in the mask, I was ignored.
I opened my palm and slapped something against the extended arm of the Masked Man.
The masked man's eyes widened as he saw an explosive talisman stuck to his arm.
It would probably not harm him much, but that can't be said for the brittle-looking jade circlet.
The man in the mask immediately released me and was about to remove the talisman.
"Domain of Delusions! Fake and Real!" I spoke calling my own domain out.
The moment it touched the Man in the Mask, was the moment where his hand which was going to release the talisman seemed to go in the opposite direction.
"NO!!!" spoke the Masked Man and immediately the talisman blew up, shattering the jade circlet along with it.
"YOU DAMN FOOL!" spoke the man in the mask, and immediately unlike what I expected, what was sticking to the sect master shook and rattled as if on ecstatic joy.
It began bulging and growing to incomparable size as it shot out tentacles in every direction grabbing everyone.
"You FOOL! You killed us all!" he said.
"Speak for yourself," I replied as I easily moved away from the tentacles.
They didn't grab me, because my Domain was affecting my very presence.
The tentacles seemed to have grabbed everyone but me, and I decided to start working on releasing my companions.
Yet, suddenly, my domain began shaking.
The man in the mask was forcing his own domain to exist within mine.
"Dynastic Regime! Ruler of the Land!" he spoke and suddenly golden lights seemed to shine from the skies high above.
And my own domain didn't seem able to contend with a far more powerful domain. The problem was, this domain wasn't trapping me within it, so I couldn't just deny my existence within this domain and leave, it was actually a domain that manifested within the world, and didn't take a part of the world and claim it it's own.
"Shit," I cursed as the domain's power started breaking my own domain all too easily.
"No one can defy the Empire!" shouted the masked man, however, those were his last words.
Elder Wei and Elder Fu-Tian who I thought had no power to move seemed to have manifested behind him, they had their arms shoved right through his back to his front chest.
The masked man couldn't do anything but cough blood as the two cultivators seemed to channel the remaining of their cultivation base into one last desperate effort of ending their own lives alongside the man that brought them to this trap.
They were self-detonating.
"You did well, Ling Cao!" spoke the sect master.
The last I saw was his hand pointing at me, "Leave and don't turn back! I'll do my best to keep this thing trapped here, if it ever goes out it'll be a calamity upon the world! Run and never trust the imperials Ling Cao!"
A crack behind me seemed to manifest and I was pushed out of it.
The last I saw was the amalgamation of that disgusting creature consuming everything as it grew, while the crack in space seemed to close releasing me outside of that prison.
Just as I got my bearings, I noticed that my arms seemed to be disintegrating alongside everything that caught my eyes.
The whole world seemed to be slowly dispersing into nothingness and soon I opened my eyes back into a small dark stone room.
My hands were on the back of a corpse that seemed to be made of stone, and the moment I removed my hands, the corpse started turning to dust and disappeared.
I didn't understand what went on or what was going on, and after a few moments, a commotion like no other began echoing.
As I stood up to check up on the commotion, I noticed a small letter in front of me.
I grabbed it and walked out, to find the majority of the rooms of the Advent Tower open, and there were no more corpses there.
People were completely confused about what just happened.
And from the looks of it, it wasn't just my corpse that disintegrated, but all of them.
'What in the world is going on?'