Chapter 37: Red Star Guarding the Heart? Or…

  “Red Star Guarding the Heart… Red Star Guarding the Heart! Even among the various Star Fiend Straes, it was sidered the fiercest and most perilous!”

  At the very thought of this possibility, the Medie Manor Lord felt his heart skip a beat.

  The ominous nature of this fate spelled doom to any who entered it—if a person entered it, they died; if an army entered it, it lost; if a nation entered it, it was destroyed. The moment it appeared, the very foundations of empires were shaken, throwing all under heaven into turmoil!

  The fate was fierce, and the person was also fierce! Anyone who bore such a Heaven-Ordained Fate, should they strive for success, would iably walk a path piled high with corpses, the so-called “For one general’s achievement, ten thousand bones must bleach.”

  It was fitting, so fitting…

  ——It was meant to be the future Heavenly Demon War General for their Heavenly Will Divio quer the world!

  At the same time…

  “Fellow Junior Brothers and Junior Sisters, while we have this opportunity, I want to tell you all a truth.”

  Having fully awakened his Heaven-Ordained Fate and secured partial authority over the Imperial Heaven Star Fiend Grand Rite from within, An Jing seized the moment when the demoniergy was dispersed, and his soul ected with all the other boys and girls withiual. He sent them a message—memories, in fact.

  He held nothing back as he said, “Hanging Fate Manor is not what they cim—a hidden orthodox lineage.”

  “Their true identity is the Heavenly Will Demonic Sect.”

  “As for our other fellow disciples—those who left us before—they did not go down the mountain because they cked talent or were reassigned outside the manor. Rather, they became materials for the Demonic Sect’s elixir refining.”

  “They were eaten.”

  An Jing’s thoughts swept through the entire great array, and his voice echoed in the minds of all sixty-six who still lived.

  Yet at first, not everyone grasped what exactly An Jing was saying—they had just escaped their Inner Heart Demons, and many still felt dazed, at a loss.

  For a moment, the interior of the ritual swelled with the cmor of fused adolest voices.

  “I broke free of my Inner Heart Demon? Wait… hang on, what’s happening?!”

  “Haha… hahahahaha! I survived! I did it! Mother! Father, do you see this?!”

  “Liu Jie?! Don’t die, please don’t die! I beg you… please don’t leave me…”

  “I… it seems like I was dreaming… did we succeed in overing the trial? No, this memory… this, this is…”

  Having cast off their Inner Heart Demons, they each reacted differently.

  Some, more perceptive than others, might have escaped their Inner Heart Demons even without An Jing’s help—though they could not have awakeheir Heaven-Ordained Fate. They noticed right away that other children beside them had perished, and they were stunned.

  Others, on the brink of being swallowed by their Inner Heart Demons, were rescued by An Jing. Still in shock, their emotions surged wildly, verging on delirium.

  Some realized their friends or panions had died and grieved so deeply that even their very souls sobbed in sorrow.

  But soon, all heard An Jing’s words. They received the many memories he shared.

  A bck, stormy night, lightning tearing through the silence.

  They all seemed to personally experience what An Jing had gohrough—running through pelting rain, searg the manrounds, bearing that dread of firming a horrifying truth while ging to feeble hope that the Heavens or the Demonic Sect might show mercy. Though deep down they already khey still used nearly hopeless ce to lift a stone cover.

  They all saw that single bone drifting to the surface.

  They saw the person who had vanished.

  Afterward, they saw the duhe butchery in the dungeon, those hung-up carcasses and corpses.

  Silence.

  Bright scarlet light shoo the depths of their hearts. Through the power of the altar, An Jing’s spirit ected with every one of them.

  At this moment, he could sense all the emotions stirring in them: sed like tempestuous waves; some were sunk in the deepest grief; some became cold and numb like ice; others fell into a calm fusion.

  And then came responses, oer another.

  “No… impossible…”

  Some boys and girls who believed wholeheartedly that Hanging Fate Manor was like new parents to them now babbled ily, “They would reat us like this… The instructors and teachers have always been so kind…”

  “How could it be, Ah Zhu…” Others reized the name of a familiar friend in An Jing’s memories, and promptly lost all posure. “Impossible! Ah Zhu didn’t die—he went down the mountain; I’m sure we’ll meet there again! Senior Brother, you’re lying to me! You’re lying, aren’t you?!”

  These children at least showed some rea. Their hearts had not been wholly corrupted by the Demonic Sect. The inteional shock—learning that friends who had apahem so long had died nearby and that those who they ohought simply departed “down the mountain” had long since bee “medie pulp”—shattered their mental defenses and spurred their untrolled panid horror. Yet it also ripped away the mask they had worheir hearts all this time.

  Still, others had already been distorted by the Demonic Sect’s methods to the point of utter apathy.

  They felt nothing about anyone else’s death: though they had lost many panions, wasn’t that to be expected? Hadn’t they all been prepared to stake their lives? When risking their lives, how could they not have anticipated such a possibility?

  They were the victors; those who died—even those who ended up as medie pulp—were failures.

  ——Why should the victors empathize with the losers?

  An Jing had anticipated this.

  He himself had nearly been twisted by the Demonic Sect’s methods, so how could he bme these apathetic youngsters? Moreover, the Demonic Sect had indeed “purchased their lives.” Even he could not deny that.

  But he would resist, like a trapped rabbit caught in a snare or a crab bought at the market—he would bite or cmp down if given the ce.

  Hence, An Jing spoke pinly.

  “Open your eyes wide and see.”

  An Jing raised the sword in his hand, pointing toward those younger disciples who had perished when failing to awaken a Heaven-Ordained Fate. Threads of dark-red mist seeped from their corpses—blood essehe pure blood essence of these adolests gathered in midair, collected by the massive ritual array, verging into something far away.

  Drawing on the power withiar—likely inating from some Sword Spirit—An Jing maniputed the grand array. He guided the sciousness of all the surviving youths along the strands of blood esseo trace them bad in practically an instant, their view returo Hanging Fate Manor, to the fifth floor of the Medie Pavilion, specifically the Medie Manor Lord’s study.

  They saw a vessel of dark goldeal.

  Within it, those dark-red wisps densed into round, glossy pills that emitted a crimson glow—pure inside and out.

  【Great Blood Pill】

  Iudy, two stationed apothecaries watched over the vessel. Seeing the blood essence geal into pills, they did not look excited reedy; rather, they looked…

  They looked dissatisfied.

  “Why so few?”

  One of the younger apothecaries frow the Blood Pills ihe Life-Nurturing Vessel, appearing somewhat displeased. “So many made it through the trial this time?”

  “Yes, they really are strohan usual,” said the older apothecary, gazing thoughtfully toward Hanging Fate Valley. “I saw two ns of starlight pierce the sky just now—I suspect two people awakened a 【Strae】!”

  “You haven’t been at Hanging Fate Manor long, so you don’t know. The reason this Imperial Heaven Star Fiend Grand Rite divides one hundred eight people into twelve groups is that too few partits would be uo withstand the power of the Divine Sword and Heavenly Demons, while too many would interfere with one another, uo defiheir own ‘self.’”

  “Withiual, each time one member of a group dies, the others’ likelihood of being invaded by demoniergy increases, but so does their ce of prehending and crifying their Heaven-Ordained Fate.”

  “However, if there is someone in the group whose mind is abnormally strong, two possibilities arise.”

  “The first is that apart from this person, everyone else’s spirit bees overwhelmed by him, leading to their deaths and turning them into nourishment for his success.”

  Here, the older apothecary smacked his lips, somewhat regretful. “The sed is that his mind is like a colossal tree, shading others us opy—thus allowing them to survive together.”

  “It seems our twe Fate masters this time are the more ‘benevolent’ sort… While there will be big rewards from above, they’ll go to the Manor Lord and the Head Instructor and a few other elders.”

  “For us, it would holy have been more practical to split up more Blood Pills.”

  “Indeed.” The younger apothecary memorized the older man’s words and nodded. “Pruning the brarehe trunk. We really don’t need so many ordinary survivors. Twenty or thirty, at most forty, would be more than enough.”

  “As for the rest—even if they live, what good are they? Don’t even talk about those without Heaven-Ordained Fates—even the ones with only ixed Fates would still need stant training from the manor. And in the end, they’d amount to nothing, not as good as us apothecaries…”

  Though somewhat boastful, it was accurate: having a Heaven-Ordained Fate rerequisite for a martial artist to reaternal Fortification, but possessing one did not guaraitude in martial arts, nor did it ehey would aplish Internal Fortification.

  Particurly for those who bore Mixed Fates, enpassing all sorts of possibilities—some baffling, such as a “Laundry Immortal,” “Roasted Meat Immortal,” or “Cooking Immortal,” ferring the power to wash clothes or cook food with extraordinary skill. At least the st two could serve as chefs, but the first… was that truly for doing undry?

  Apothecaries looked down on such Mixed Fates. Moreover, the rewards from above were vague and intangible. The Blood Pills, oher hand, were substantial bes they literally held in their hands.

  The strands of blood essence dispersed, ending the backtrag.

  Those children whose blood essence had been drained were already starting to depose rapidly into shriveled husks. Soon enough, their remains would be nothing but bleached bones—just like the skeletons that the newers had seehey first arrived at the white sandy ground.

  An Jing surveyed all the silence. He felt the stifled fury and terror within them, each realizing that they were nothing but livestock.

  “From here on,” he said, “I’ll stop expining and start doing.”

  “Then, if you want to go back to Hanging Fate Mano back; if you want to follow me, follow me.”

  No one dared talk back to An Jing, who made the decration. Instinctively, they obeyed.

  Perhaps that was a bitter fruit of the manor’s own making—An Jing had performed so well that almost all the instructrew zy, leaving much of the teag and training to him.

  He had trained and walked the mountains with them.

  He had drunk aen side by side with them.

  He had fought alongside them.

  He taught martial teiques and expined cssic texts, listeo their troubles, and soled them.

  At this point, the authority and influence of An Jing, the Senior Brother, already surpassed that of any instructor or teacher over these young disciples.

  “Wake up, and then form ranks!”

  When An Jing gave the order—

  No one questioned him. There was o expin.

  All of them subsciously plied with his words.

  In the blink of an eye, every boy and girl awakened from the dream induced by their Inner Heart Demons. Some looked bewildered or dazed, at a loss.

  But they saw one figure—the first to stand, the first to raise his on.

  So they, too, rose.

  So they, too, gripped their bdes and swords.

  (End of Chapter)