Chapter 707: Oblivion’s Due
Gripping the last sect leader’s soul by the neck, Adam soared. A mana platform met his feet mid-air as he towered over the Verdant Peak sect’s grey tiled houses.
Through the windows, he noticed two types of disciples. The vast majority leaned over the windowsills, chatting with mocking grins, probably about how their elders had already felled him.
The other group—just over a hundred youths hiding in the smallest cottages—gnawed on their thumbnails. Eyes darted everywhere, hushed whispers passed between them, and trembling hands patted shoulders trembling even more.
Those... he would give them the benefit of the doubt. The first group, however...
His face hardened, and the sect leader’s soul throbbed in his grip. "Y-You can’t kill them all. They are the future of this province: the ones who keep villages and cities safe from magical beasts, bandits, demonic cultivators, and..." He bit his lip, his voice cracking. "Mages. We sinned, but what you’re about to do is far worse. You’ll doom hundreds of thousands to die—millions to live in misery."
Adam raised his palm. Mana roared in his magical circuits, the unholy quantity causing the leader’s pupils to constrict. Could a human being hold this much energy? No! What mattered now was to stop him from shattering the balance of power. After all, even if his sect wasn’t among the most powerful, its influence kept the surrounding ones at bay. Once gone, territorial wars would ravage this part of the Western region.
"Don’t!" His roar reverberated through the mountain. "You’ll become the public enemy of the cultivation realm, hunted by every sect, every cultivator. All for what? A vengeance that’s not your own. Our dao ancestor won’t sit idly, either. Can you bear to offend one of the three most powerful cultivators in the realm? You—a rogue mage whose ancestors were banished from the mages’ archipelago?"
Adam raised a brow, his palm pausing beneath his chin. He observed the leader’s soul, noticing how the corner of its lips curled. "I guess you’re right."
The leader’s tensed cheeks relaxed, only for his teeth to sink into his spectral lips at Adam’s answer.