Modern Patriarch - Chapter 127: The Grand Showdown (4)

Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang blinked for the third time in the span of a mere few seconds. During that brief instance of time, a plinking sound echoed out in the silence of the chamber as another bead in the necklace artefact he had placed before her shattered. He watched the diffusion of countless fragments of translucent crystal with a stunned expression, the crinkling sound accompanying it signifying the death of a Peak-Stage Nascent Soul Cultivator.

One Nascent Soul’s death in itself would have been far from significant. No matter how well one planned, casualties were inevitable in a battle between cultivators. However, it was the sixteen prior shattered beads coupled with the seventeenth that pushed the situation beyond the brink of what he could ignore.

For a final time, Yifang Huang’s gaze shifted to the Azure Gemstone placed next to the now half-shattered necklace artefact. It still remained disappointingly inert, only adding further to his confusion. It had been Gavril’s mission, his original mission, to capture Yao Shen’s Qi Signature within the seeking prism— a task that Yifang believed him to have accomplished successfully.

There was no way possible for Yao Shen to join the battle in any meaningful capacity and not be detected by the Seeking Prism. However, even if he had found a way to circumvent the tried and tested means of the Demonic Path that had been used across centuries, with the Decoy-Soul Pendants they had crafted for each of the Elders taking part in the incursion, even the relic should not have allowed him to slaughter seventeen Peak-Stage Nascent Souls so quickly!

“Damn it,” Yifang Huang snarled under his breath, his features twisting in rage as he found himself confronted by the full gravity of the situation. “If this is bait, then whoever laid it out knows very well I’ll fall for it.”

It had been decades… nay, three whole centuries since he had allowed such a grave miscalculation to poison his calculations. Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang’s gaze turned to the shifting lines of blood running across the secluded chamber that housed the Azlak Plains’ sole Demon Gate, as he allowed himself a few moments longer to consider his position.

The Greater Rune Formation obfuscating the chamber concealing the Demon Gate was a remnant of the ancients, its layered complexity part of the reason why so many precautions had to be agreed to before its use was authorized. As long as Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang remained secluded within the chamber, not even a Soul Paragon would be able to detect his presence within the Azlak Plains. That, however, would change the moment he stepped outside the cavern and change drastically as and when he was forced to flare his Qi.

Of course, no security measures were perfect, not even the ones for the Demon Gates. Every few decades or so, the righteous path would discover and destroy one or two. Each time it was a lamentable loss, but on the scale of the entirety of Ionea it merely became the cost of doing business.

The larger infrastructure of the Demon Gates remained untouched, for as in the present case, only Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang was aware of the true method to activate the Demon Gate back towards the Eastern Node and him betraying the interests of the Ancient Codex to preserve his life was impossible even if such a loophole was allowed to exist.

Illivarra Feralheart had not even stepped foot into the Azlak Plains, after all.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Yet, that knowledge did little to assuage her vexation. Seventeen Peak-Stage Nascent Soul Cultivators had died in the insignificant, Qi-barren Azlak Plains. The most likely explanation was an alliance with the Eastern Righteous Path’s forces, most likely the Tower of Radiance.

However, even the most likely explanation the renowned spymaster could think of was full of holes. Why would the Tower of Radiance burn a precious opportunity to blindside her only to kill some Nascent Soul rabble?

The second possibility, however, was wherein lay the true bait. Yao Shen had discovered a Relic, a valuable cultivation-aiding one at that, as a youngling yet to reach his first quadricentennial. Who was to say that he could not discover another such artifact—perhaps multiple, capable of wreaking havoc across Gavril’s Elders’ ranks.

Stepping into the ancient battlefield, the Gorge of Death, had been obvious bait. And the secret that was waiting for above, on the surface, was Yao Shen’s countermeasure against the expected incursion.

It was very unlike Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang, or rather, the hand controlling the puppet, Illivarra Feralheart, to act based on conjecture or emotion. However, there was one key factor that could not be overlooked.

No one of any worth besides her knew of this anomaly within the Azlak Plains. From the progression of battle, it was clear that the remaining Nascent Soul pawns would either be dead or dying soon enough. And Gavril Ar’kael would be executed for failing the Master of the Codex twice, his suspicions dying with him. There were any number of ways she could spin the tale and few would believe that one as esteemed and trusted as her would bear a grudge with an ordinary Soul Emperor.

No artifact capable of slaying so many Peak-Stage Nascent Souls in such a short realm of time could be worthless. Perhaps even Yao Shen was not equipped to decipher its true purpose. His triumph over Gavril had seemed more a fortuitous stroke of luck than a true defeat in skill, though even such a feat was impressive considering where he hailed from.

Had he even been aware of the relic’s true purpose until Gavril revealed the Ancient Codex’s signature domain to him?

Unlikely.

There were many other ways to deal with Gavril from the outset if Yao Shen had full knowledge and control over the relic’s powers.

If Illivarra played her cards right, whatever secret this Modern Sect hid would be her within a matter of hours. Even if Yao Shen tried to interfere, he would have to detect Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang first and even then, the Mid-Stage Soul Emperor of the Celestial Four-Element Sect possessed a greater offensive might even in his diminished form when compared to the paltry attack vectors Yao Shen had revealed.

Most important of all, any power however slight that Illivarra could gain without the Master of the Codex knowing was worth immeasurably more to her— it was, of course, how she would rise to the seat when the time was apt, after all.

Flesh Puppet Yifang Huang moved towards the small-scale spatial teleportation formation placed on the southern end of the chamber. It would teleport her into the Nayun Forest at random, the teleportation distance and by extension, the efficacy and usefulness of the formation so low in most circumstances that only the slightest pulse of spatial ripples would flow from the site of teleportation.

The juxtaposition of placing the Demon Gate next to a small-scale teleportation formation that was so inferior that it did not even deserve to be considered ‘teleportation’ would normally amuse Illivarra, but today she had no time for such trivial emotional whims.

A moment later she was gone and silence returned to the isolated chamber.