Chapter 288: The Gathering
"Besides, that means the guy must have more Cultivation Spirit Stones on him—and probably a lot of them."
"But why didn't Sword King Valley just attack and rob the Chu Family back then?" the man asked, looking puzzled.
"Rob them?" The old man scoffed. "Why waste their own strength? By dragging things out like this, they can just wait until the Chu Family is on the brink of collapse. Then, they'll hand the stones over willingly. This isn't the same as decades ago. The Chu Family has to hand over every last Cultivation Spirit Stone, or they're all going to die!"
At the checkpoint at the foot of the mountain, the gathering had concluded smoothly, but everyone was still eating and drinking. Thus, disciples of the Chu Family remained stationed there on guard.
After all, there was no shortage of potential troublemakers, and the Chu Family couldn't afford to be careless.
Just then, a series of dull, thudding sounds echoed.
It sounded like footsteps, but also like someone hopping.
"Brother, I think I hear a lot of people… and a bell?" a Chu Family disciple said, his expression changing.
"This is bad. It sounds like the Corpse Transport Sect!" the other Chu Family disciple said, his face grim.
The Corpse Transport Sect was a rather infamous but highly secretive Sect. They specialized in transporting corpses and refining them into weapons for their own use.
Rumor had it their corpses were incredibly tough—impervious to swords and sabers.
"Then what do we do?" the more timid Chu Family disciple asked, starting to get scared.
"Don't panic. What's there to be afraid of? Our people are up on the mountain. They won't dare to try anything," the slightly older disciple said, trying to remain calm.
In truth, he was terrified himself. It was the first time he had ever encountered something like this.
He had only ever heard stories about this Sect, never seen them in person.
They were known to refine the bodies of their own Sect's dead experts, or even their enemies, turning them into weapons.
Crucially, these… things… mostly came out at night, so ordinary people had never seen them.
Before long, a group emerged from the thin mist.
But they weren't people—they were corpses.
Arrayed in rows, they were an utterly horrifying sight in the dark.
Behind the corpses stood a man in a Daoist robe, holding a small handbell.
An ordinary person happening upon this scene would have likely fainted from fright on the spot.
"Do you represent the Corpse Transport Sect?" one of the Chu Family disciples called out loudly.
"The Chu Family! After cowering for decades, you think you can make a comeback? Not a chance! Out of the way!" the man roared arrogantly.
The man had only one eye and was quite ugly—the kind of ugly that would make a child burst into tears.
Generally, disciples of the Corpse Transport Sect were all like this: misshapen, bizarre, and utterly terrifying.
"This way, please. Our Chu Family Ancestor is hosting a banquet at the summit," the two Chu Family disciples said. They weren't fools; they quickly moved to clear the path.
In reality, Chu Tianshan had given them orders beforehand: no matter who arrived, as long as they weren't ordinary folk, they were to be allowed to pass without exception.
This was especially true for members of Martial Arts Families.
The man just let out a cold snort.
The sound sent a paralyzing chill through the two Chu Family disciples. It was just too horrifying.
But even though they were terrified and chilled to the bone, there was nothing they could do.
The Chu Family's ancestor had already given the order: stop no one.
So, even as these people brought corpses with them, the disciples couldn't do a thing but let them pass.
Only after the group had disappeared into the distance did the Chu Family disciples finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Brother, that Sect is so twisted. Using corpses as weapons… it's terrifying," the younger Chu Family disciple said.
"Yeah. Those guys are just horrifying. My heart was in my throat," the older disciple agreed, still shaken.
It was the dead of winter, and the weather was frigid.
As night fell, heavy, goose-feather snow began to fall from the sky.
Just then, another person approached.
He wore simple linen clothes and a straw hat, and carried a sword in his hand. He looked a bit like an old farmer.
"Jiangnan Mao Sect, here to visit the Chu Family." The man presented the longsword in his hand.
"This way, please," the two Chu Family disciples said hurriedly.
This person, though strange, was at least relatively normal. At the very least, he wasn't horrifying.
'The timing was strange, too. It was already dark. Even with the path lamps, wasn't he worried about tripping as he felt his way up the mountain?'
'And coming so late at night… it felt like he had something to hide.'
'The crucial thing was, these Sects were rarely seen. You never heard a peep about them.'
'But now that the Chu Family was making a comeback, they were all crawling out of the woodwork.'
The man gave a slight nod to the two Chu Family disciples before heading up the path. He was polite enough, at least.
After him, a steady stream of people began to arrive. They were all from Sects that normally kept a low profile, though of course, some major families were mixed in as well.
In any case, more and more people were arriving.
Up on the summit, it was a similar scene. Everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, yet no one had left.
Many of them knew that others would likely continue to arrive and challenge the Chu Family.
In other words, the real show was about to begin.