The great elder, Hengye Mochen, had barely filled his predecessors in that the Wuxin-Puppet punched at the empty air. The supreme elder aside, horrifying spatial vibrations raced at the newly risen elders. Each of the twelve possessed at least an Immortal Emperor cultivation base, with ancient treasures and a dao foundation tested by deluges of tribulation lightning. In the Great Desolation World, they represented the absolute peak—a peak so high that most continental experts couldn't put a name on their cultivation level.
However, before that casual strike, tens to hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation atrophied instantly. Leaving the grand elders defenseless before the Wuxin-puppet's freakish strength. Still, they didn't flounder. Better, they sneered.
The supreme elder, Hengye Jie, raised his right hand. Divine Light surged from each grand elder, and though all still stood in the ancestral hall, Hengye Mochen and the Wuxin-puppet no longer saw ebony walls. Instead, a pitch-black void space replaced it all, with gargantuan chains of divine light jolting out of nothingness to blast through the Wuxin-puppet's move, and aim for its limbs!
"Insignificant tricks. Granted that your strength approaches Wuxin's peak, that only applies to your raw destructive abilities. You are just a puppet, and thus, have absolutely none of the mystical skills that made Wuxin so terrifying." The supreme elder tapped his storage ring, summoning a white-jade mirror that flashed with flickering black lightning.
The grand elders did the same, runic symbols and array nodes multiplied as, with Hengye Jie leading them, the retired elders activated their clan's supreme formation: the God-Isolating Array!
"Against the likes of Taiyang Yuan, your raw strength is more than enough. Even the retired elders of the Taiyang clan wouldn't be able to suppress you. But over 10,000 years ago, our Hengye branch enjoyed massive benefits. Be it in cultivation or formation attainments, we're far above this Taiyang branch already.
They exist because we still have a use for them. But this world, only has one master, and its dominance doesn't rely on one unsightly puppet!" Almost instantaneously, the Hengye elders arranged the formation. Colossal titans crafted from pure divine light formed around them, wielding the chains to trap the Wuxin-puppet in the God-Isolating Array.
Initially, Hengye Jie and the elder crew foresaw swift victory. But even as their divine chains latched on the Wuxin-puppet, its tyrannical fleshly body held on, resisting the God-Isolating Array.
"Aaaargh!" Low, guttural howls backed the puppet's efforts, and with each one of its tugs, the retired elders arms threatened to give out. Still they yanked, aware that one mistake was all it'd take for the Wuxin-puppet to turn the tables and beat them all into raggedy dogs—or worse, dead dogs.
"Im…impossible!" Hengye Mochen couldn't believe it, and his father fared no better. Still, the supreme elder's bag hid countless tricks. Dark jewel stones rose from his storage ring, firing divine beams that slammed into the shackled Wuxin-puppet, eating at its physical dominance while empowering the retired elders.
Divine light flashed in the supreme elder's eyes, black lightning rays shot out, slamming the Wuxin-puppet in the chest. Here, its knees buckled, the chains tightened around its neck, limbs and joints, hurling it into the ground.
A pyramid-shaped block of divine light appeared above the downed puppet, slamming down and isolating it in a secure dimension. The God-Isolating Array broke right afterward, with all but the supreme elder panting for breath.
"Wuxin, for your puppet alone to have such might shows how far ahead of your time you were. With you at the helm, Our Venerable Selves would by now be sitting among the stars of the Night Pantheon, with no end of honor and glory at our feet. What a pity that you lost your mind. Your wife is just as bad. Mochen, I blame you for this. Had you not lost the God-Child selection to Yuemi's father, she would not have been born the daughter of a God-Monarch, and none of this…would be happening. Perhaps Wuxin wouldn't have gone rogue either."
To say nothing of the ancient Hengye Jie, even the new generation of Night Spirits couldn't understand why the previous monarch would reject world domination, all the glory under the heavens, and a clear-cut path towards the peak of the Celestial Paradise, to go wander among mortals.
Did cultivators not derive their drive from the perpetual chase of the highest summit? Of what use was power if it had no one to dominate?
Although the younger generations were getting increasingly more comfortable with their mortal shells, diving into experiments and indulgence that made their elders' faces twist in shame and rage, they'd never forget what clan—what race—they belonged to, and would never see the mortal world as anything more than a chew toy.
"Venerable Father, your son is useless." Faced with his father's rebuke, Hengye Mochen lowered his head, sighing at his own 'ineptitude.' Their line had dominated the God-Monarch seat for hundreds of thousands of years, and though occasionally, one child of the other lines would rise to snatch the seat, starting with Hengye Yuemi's father, it was the entire power structure that shifted away from the Wuxin line.
Hengye Mochen couldn't escape blame, but likewise, had Hengye Jie not lost the God-Child battle, would he not have been better equipped to handle his? But raised under cult-style family laws, Hengye Mochen wouldn't allow such thoughts to pop up in his mind.
"Never mind. While from birth, Yuemi always challenged our norms, it wasn't until Wuxin abandoned us for that mortal worm that she spiraled out of control. Instead of paying attention to those signs, we assumed that since the Divine Ancestor chose her, her actions fell in line with its desires. But perhaps from the start, our Divine Ancestor was testing us as well. After all, it is the same attention deficit that we've handled Yuemi with that prevented us from noticing Wuxin's change.
If we can't even watch out for one Yuemi, should the need arise, how can we stop the Greatest One from damaging his unparalleled destiny?"
"Right, why did I not think of this till now?" Mochen and the grand elders found Hengye Jie's words so reasonable that they soon became the only explanation that they wanted to believe.
But were they wrong? Had they not been so concerned with doing Yongye's bidding that they refused to employ common sense on the Yuemi problem? Or perhaps, deep down they knew—no, feared—that common sense had no use when dealing with a Primeval Deity's will.
"Time is of the essence, each second I waste brings my Great Tribulation closer. I will not survive the next one. Come, let's end this madness once and for all," Hengye Jie said, and alongside his goons, vanished, chasing Yuemi down through his Spiritual Sense.
…
Xinzi had it good—real good.
As soon as the great elder left for the ancestral hall, our monk's immoral hands got to work. First, he scanned his opponents. Five maids surrounded him, one first-class maid at his back, two second-class maids at his left and right, with two more standing right before him. Initially, the second-class maids scrubbed Xinzi's shoulders, chest and legs with luminous sponges. The first-class maid did the same with the injuries at his back, pairing the sponges' curative abilities with the Dao-Cleansing Pool to solve our monk's injuries.
The maids wore long black veils that kept all but their eyes covered. But even without a Spiritual Sense probe, Xinzi knew that, first-class maids aside, all servants of the Evernight Palace were either water spirits or human-form sea creatures. The scholar in him demanded a thorough examination of those ladies' breathing patterns, the texture of their skin when compared to human gals, the elasticity of their bouncy assets, and a complete recording of their inner walls.
His lips curled into a professionally fiendish grin, and while resting his back and head between the Night Spirit's mounds, our monk reached out, letting his scholarly hands wander down the closest maids' waists. At first, he teased their nerves with gentle touch, then sank his hands into their fleshly butts.
"Anh!" The soft then rough handling pulled a pair of synced moans from the ladies' veiled lips. And though their long black dresses stood in the way, they only intensified the friction that Xinzi's hands brought them already.
Their nipples turned erect, and as Evernight Palace residents don't wear underwear, Xinzi's eagle eyes noticed the honest body reaction.
"G-greatest one, I am…engaged," the maid at Xinzi's right said in a soft, mellow tone, purring the words like a feline rubbing against her master—then dropped on Xinzi's shoulder, her hardened nipples pushing against his arms.
"Oh? Isn't that illegal?" Xinzi, who remembered that all servants of the Evernight Palace where, theoretically, the property of the reigning monarch, and could take no major life decision without his consent, frowned at the words.
"Only for…first-class maids," the maid said, reminding Xinzi that this law only applied to Night Spirits, as any other lives were considered too inferior to interact with the Eternal Night Dynasty's God-Monarch.
"The Lord-Regent gave clear directives. We're all helpless before her will, and have to make the best of this situation. My heart aches for that man, but it is what it is." Ever a fan of hussies, Xinzi loved the maid's provocations. His right hand sank into the pool, lifting the maid's dress high enough that he could sneak his fingers between her legs.
A warm, soft and moist flower bud greeted our monk's finger, and as his expert hands trailed the maid's cunt, long whimpers crossed her lips.
"Mhmm…yes, I'm sure he will….understand."