Destiny is ashes

Chapter 725: Five Heroes of Mingjing (6200)

One summer nearly three thousand years ago, due to various reasons, the five heroes of the golden age of Mingjing Sect gathered outside the sect for the first time.

In the dungeon of Chenli Baibu.

Gu Fei (Chen Yinzi's real name) meditated on the dirty ground in the dungeon, which was covered with blood scabs, mud, rotten straw, and fragments of human teeth and nails. He closed his eyes and listened to the groans and wails of the prisoners.

Amid the sour stench of rotting meat, his breathing did not fluctuate in the slightest, as regular as a machine.

Apart from the icy blue mysterious spiritual light that appeared from time to time on his face, Gu Fei looked like he was practicing in the sect's retreat room.

But in reality, he was a prisoner.

Gu Fei had iron chains wrapped around his body that bound his limbs, but did not penetrate his scapula and shoulder blades.

The people who imprisoned him seemed to be very afraid of the Mingjing Sect robe he was wearing. Even after locking him in the dungeon, they were not determined to completely eliminate his ability to resist.

Poison, poison, elixir. This method of control has its limitations after all.

It's easy to deal with country warriors, but it's not possible to deal with a true disciple like him.

The internal Qi circulation was circulated and the formation [Zhengyang Shadowless] expelled all the cold poison from the body. When he opened his eyes again, Gu Fei exhaled a breath of ice-blue poison gas, and his eyes flashed with two bright purple lights. He was full of energy and returned to his prime.

He stood up, and amid the screams and attempts to stop the two startled jailers, the young warrior raised his hand and blasted the dungeon door open with a palm of invisible energy. The hot and mellow air wave swept the jailers aside, without harming their lives.

After opening the way out, Gu Fei withdrew his hand and strode out of the dungeon door.

At the same time, in other prisons, similar violent noises occurred almost at the same time.

Not long after, on the ground, five true disciples from various peaks of Mingjing Sect, who had met each other a few times in the past but had never met in private, met in the dungeon of their 'own ally', the Juer tribe, one of the hundred tribes of Chenli.

The five people looked at each other with smiles on their faces, and Gu Fei laughed, took a step forward, saluted everyone, and spoke first: "Brothers and sisters, may I ask who used the secret light and shadow to transmit the sound and teach me the method of detoxification?"

"It is indeed a life-saving grace. I, Gu Fei, thank you very much!"

"It's me, Sun Xuan (True Lord Fujing's real name) from Shihui Peak."

A young man with a round face and round eyes, who looked wealthy but not fat at all, and who seemed to have a blessed aura, walked forward with a smile.

He returned the salute to Gu Fei, then turned his head to look at the tall young man beside him. His eyebrows were like blazing flames, his eyes were piercing, and his whole body seemed to be made of iron and steel. He said modestly, "However, this detoxification method was not something I came up with. It was Brother Nan Huaijing who thought of it and told me, and then I passed it on to you all."

“Senior Brother Nan Huaijing!”

Hearing what Sun Xuan said, Gu Fei couldn't help but raise his eyebrows and looked at the tall young man curiously - this was the former senior brother who ranked first in the last session of Mingjing Sect's true teachings, and now he has reached the peak of martial veins and is ready to break through the divine treasure! He is different from someone like him who has just broken through the martial veins: "I have heard of your name for a long time, but I didn't expect that our first meeting would be here!"

"It's not a good time. We five peak disciples have met and we should have a drink together."

Nan Huaijing (Xiyi Zhenjun's real name) raised his lips slightly, but he still looked serious: "But is it just us? What about the other inner and outer disciples?"

"They are not martial veins, they should be imprisoned in the outer mortal dungeon." A thin young man with long eyebrows and an indifferent expression said. He was quite handsome, but he looked too heartless.

However, his words proved that this was not the case: "Let's go and rescue them all. Our dungeon stinks so badly. It's hard to imagine what other fellow disciples are suffering now."

"Junior Brother Qi Hezheng (the real name of Master Biying), don't be anxious."

On the other side, the girl who looked petite but was holding a huge hammer as big as herself shook her head slightly: "What we should understand most now is why the Juer tribe, which has always been close to our Mingjing Sect, suddenly rebelled and arrested us all."

"It would be fine if they arrested us, but they didn't kill us or cripple us. It's really weird no matter how you think about it."

"Junior Sister Qu Yan (Master Pu Ming's real name) is right."

Gu Fei frowned and said, "The most urgent task is to capture a high-ranking member of the Juer tribe and ask about the situation. If they are really corrupted by the demons, then we can't hold back."

The background of everything takes place in the "Demon Hunting Age".

In the past few hundred years, the activities of the demons have become more and more intense, and they have even lurked in the various tribes of the Chenli. Although this kind of thing happens once every few hundred or thousand years, this time it is particularly severe. Some demons even live in the bodies of talented children of the Chenli tribes, and follow them into the five sects, causing a lot of unrest. As a result, the Chenli tribe launched the "War of the Hundred Tribes" that lasted for decades.

After being discovered, the Heavenly Demons also launched a war. The many tribes controlled by them had already become gathering places for the demons. The internal fighting among the hundreds of tribes thus turned into a struggle between the five sects and the Heavenly Demons, the "Great Demon Hunt".

In order to deal with the demon army that had grown in scale, the five sects sent disciples to support the various tribes and suppress the demons. Gu Fei and other disciples of the Mingjing Sect went down the mountain for this reason.

The Juer tribe is one of the Chenli king tribes.

The so-called royal tribe is a tribe that has its own divine heritage. It is not as good as the lower sect, but it does have a certain foundation. They are also the main targets of erosion by the demons. During this great demon hunting, half of the Chenli royal tribe was eroded and corrupted by the demons, causing great casualties. Many tribes were even expelled.

Even the Juer tribe, which still maintains its loyalty, has many traitors among them, and was almost wiped out in the "Juer City Attack and Defense Battle" not long ago.

Fortunately, thanks to the activeness of the true disciples of Mingjing Sect, the Juer tribe successfully defended the main city.

But just when the battle to defend the city was won, civil strife broke out in the Juer tribe again. Mingjing Sect was not very clear about this, but it was highly likely that the generals who held military power wanted to expel the royal family, and the royal family, who had been severely damaged by the demonic disaster, intended to resist.

The Mingjing Sect was naturally not happy to see this - the royal family of the Juer tribe had made no mistakes, nor had they fallen, and their defense of the city had also played a role. Expelling the other side for no reason was definitely not something that could be done during war.

The Great Demon Hunt is still going on, and such fierce infighting must be stopped.

The true disciples of Mingjing Sect, led by Nan Huaijing, intercepted the pursuers of the royal family and prevented the infighting within the Juer tribe. General Juer agreed to their demands on the surface, but at the post-war banquet, all the more than 30 disciples of Mingjing Sect present were knocked down by the medicinal wine, including their five true disciples.

"The general is crazy."

Qu Yan crossed his arms and commented, "He is Shen Zang, and he has plenty of opportunities to become king. When the war is over, he can replace the original royal family in any way he wants based on his merits. If he wants to be gentle, he can marry a princess from the original royal family. If he wants to be more aggressive, it won't be too late to rebel at that time. We will definitely not care by then."

"He must have done this during the Great Demon Hunt. He must have lost his mind."

"really."

Gu Fei and Qu Yan were familiar with each other. They had fought each other in the True Transmission Competition. They knew each other better than each other. He narrowly won by one move, and since then he has been entangled by the opponent, who has asked for a sparring match from time to time.

Echoing his friend's words, he raised his head and looked at the Juer tribe camp nearby: "If nothing unexpected happens, we will be able to hear the general's answer in person soon."

Soon, accompanied by a fishy wind with the smell of iron and stone, a rusty red stream of light leaped up from the Juer army formation and then quickly reached the sky above the dungeon.

Then, General Chen Li, wearing armor and a crown, with a dark complexion, red eyes, and obvious anger and dissatisfaction, appeared in front of the five true disciples.

As soon as he arrived, a wave of military evil that was as sharp as a knife began to spread, causing the ground to crack and the air to become hot and distorted.

"General."

Facing such a conspicuous divine hidden vision, Nan Huaijing was not afraid. He stepped forward to confront the silent and angry General Chen Li: "You have to give an explanation, otherwise the next one to come is the real person from my Mingjing Sect."

"...You refused to flee or leave, but insisted on interfering in the internal affairs of my Juer tribe. I have never seen such fools as you in over a hundred years."

General Juer stared at Nan Huaijing, then glanced at the other four people. His tone was extremely unfriendly: "I deliberately left the camp unguarded and didn't give you heavy bundles, hoping that you would know what's best for you and leave. You are insisting on drinking a toast and then drinking a penalty."

"Are you angry?"

Nan Huaijing sneered. The more he saw the man in front of him getting angry, the more angry he became. "We helped you wipe out the demons and save your people. We saved your life and the lives of your people. But you took advantage of our exhaustion and held a banquet to capture us, just because we stopped you from slaughtering a group of unarmed civilians and killing your former king during the war against the demons."

"Tell me, what the hell gives you the right to be angry?"

Although it was only a martial meridian, Nan Huaijing's aura at this moment was no weaker than General Juer. Three colors of air flowed around his body, which were the three Qi of red, green, blue, fire, wood and water. The fusion of the three transformed into pure white light, the most powerful and yang breath.

【Emperor Jing Qi】

When this extremely strong and yang Qi collided with General Jue'er's strange vision of war, it was like a drill hitting iron felt, with sparks flying everywhere. It could actually temporarily block the power of Zhenren Shenzang, which made General Jue'er frown.

Then, even more angry.

"You sect masters know nothing!"

He raised his hand, and immediately, the rusty red weapon spirit surged and transformed into a giant tornado hand, which was about to suppress the five true disciples directly - although the five of them burst out with strength together and evolved a martial arts formation, they could only barely block the fall of the giant hand.

"King? What a king!" General Juer said with gritted teeth, "How many years of killing have been going on down the mountain? How many people have died? Do you know? Before the demonic disaster, the Hundred Tribes had been fighting for sixty years!"

"For the past few decades, the royal family has occupied the inherited resources and spiritual veins. Although they have not colluded with the Heavenly Demon, they have done nothing but fight for power and profit day and night. They don't care about the people's livelihood or the military. They have been defeated in every battle, and the tribe has been weakening day by day. If the Heavenly Demon hadn't come and forced the tribe to hold on, the tribe would have fallen apart long ago!"

"Otherwise, how could the dignified Chenli Kingdom be beaten into the main city by a mere demon army?"

The more he spoke, the angrier he became. General Juer's hand pressed down an inch further: "I finally had the chance to win the battle. I have the prestige to kill these rubbish, but you insisted on stopping me!"

"After such a breath of relief, a bunch of old party members reacted and started rioting!"

"Now, this damned group of royals have taken away the inheritance and spiritual objects, and they might have defected to the Taiming Sect. Are you happy about this? Is this what the Mingjing Sect wants to see?"

"Didn't you do all this?"

Gray and white spirits flowed around him, supporting the martial arts formation. Qi Hezheng gritted his teeth and said, "If you don't do it, how can they surrender to the Taiming Sect?"

He calmly commented: "I think you just know you're wrong and you're anxious, so that's why you're so angry."

"It's fine as long as we're still at war, but once the war is over, regardless of the fact that you forced the royal family to rebel, you will definitely have to go up the mountain and apologize for your crime of detaining the true teachings of the Mingjing Sect without reason."

"If I don't kill them, do you think the royal family will allow a non-royal Shenzang to monopolize power? When the war is over, won't I be at the mercy of others?!"

General Juer was indeed anxious. He wanted to increase the pressure at this moment, but found that he could not suppress it at all with the weapon evil in his hand - the strength of the five true disciples of the Mingjing Sect in front of him were all extraordinary, especially the leader Nan Huaijing. It was just that the quantity was insufficient, but in terms of the quality of the spiritual evil, could they be compared with himself?

This is the true seed of the God, the future master of the sect...

After thinking for a while, he stopped angrily and withdrew his magical power. It would have been fine if he was angry and wanted to kill people just now, but after calming down, General Juer did not dare to do anything to the group of Mingjing Sect disciples in front of him: "After all, do you think I am the only one who wants to kill those royal families? Go ask the streets! Ask everyone and see if they want to kill them!"

"This is the hatred within our tribe. Your kindness is nothing but allowing this chaos to continue!"

"If we don't take advantage of the moment and use the excuse of killing the demons, the royal family and those old and young people close to the royal family, those thieves who only know how to fight and cause chaos and plunder the people's wealth, will definitely come back to kill us, capture our sons and return home to start a counterattack. By then, won't there still be hatred and soil for the demons to breed?"

"You sect members... in the final analysis, we, the Hundred Sects, are nothing more than your playthings!"

He waved his hand, and his figure once again turned into a bloody soldier and disappeared, leaving behind only a cold order to expel him: "Go away, you can complain to the master and the sect however you want!"

"Even if you drag me to see Kongshan, I did nothing wrong. If you want the Juer tribe to be stable, these old royals must die, the sooner the better!"

"Guards, open the door! Let these sect masters go!"

The door opened, and the five true disciples had a way to leave.

They looked at each other in bewilderment. They had never expected that General Juer, who was almost furious, would just let them go like that - they thought they would have to fight for at least a few more moves.

Only when they really left the camp and came to the desolate and messy streets of Juer's main city, which were full of blood and corpses, could they fully confirm this.

"General Juer is right."

After leaving the camp, Sun Xuan shook his head. He was a native of Chenli and was very familiar with the Baibu's tactics. "The internal fighting among the Baibu has always been like this. It has never changed for thousands of years. If the general does not kill the old royal family now, someone will definitely attribute his achievements to the royal family. When the war is over, he will be unable to protect himself, and we will not save him."

"But he can tell us. It won't be difficult to let him return to the sect as a guest elder."

Sun Xuan was most dissatisfied with this point. Killing an old royal family was just a common occurrence for the Baibu people. "Or they could ask us to leave early, and then we can say that the old royal family is missing and was killed by the demons. Anyway, such a small matter does not need to be verified."

"I guess General Juer thought this was a trivial matter, so he didn't tell us."

Qu Yan looked at the soldiers of the Juer tribe who were rescuing supplies from the ruins and couldn't help but sigh. She went over and swept away the heavy soil and rocks on the ruins with a hammer. Amid the other party's thanks, she shook her head and walked back: "Could it be that we really are meddling in other people's business?"

"Not really." Qi Hezheng whispered. He always looked at the essence of the problem directly. "In the past few decades, the demons have been inciting hatred among the tribes. Generals and royal families, high-ranking officials and low-ranking officials, merchants and herdsmen, men and women, sect warriors and tribal warriors... They are constantly dividing the people among the tribes, causing hatred to increase, and they cannot see the essence of the problem."

"At this point, even if there is no Sky Demon, the fire of hatred has already burned. The Sky Demon is the instigator, but now, the hatred between the Hundred Tribes is real. Even if the Great Demon Hunt is over, the war between the Hundred Tribes will probably continue until the last generation is completely wiped out, and then a new peace can be ushered in."

"wrong."

Gu Fei frowned. He felt that his displeasure was not just about this. "I always feel that General Juer's hatred towards us is not just about this... He really hates the sect. Obviously, we went down the mountain and fought desperately to help him."

"Even though we fought together, he didn't have any good feelings towards us. He even felt that we were pretending to be good people. Why did he have such great hostility? This is what I don't understand and I feel very uncomfortable."

"Brother Gu is right."

Nan Huaijing, who had been silent until now, spoke up, his tone heavy: "He does hate us... because the hatred that the demons can exploit can also be exploited by humans."

"Now that I think about it, I'm afraid they're not all demons. The mutual hatred among the hundreds of tribes of Chenli is easy to split and extremely prone to internal strife. This is deliberately designed by our sect."

As soon as these words were spoken, the other four people were stunned, and then they suddenly realized.

They are all true disciples of the sect, and each of them is extremely intelligent. They only need one little thing to understand the situation of all the departments, provided that they can think in the right way.

"No wonder General Juer is so angry."

After realizing it, Gu Fei finally understood why the general had been so angry and dissatisfied. In the eyes of the people of the Hundred Sects, it was the Sect's big hands that made them run around. Before the Heavenly Demon, didn't the Hundred Sects fight among themselves? After the Heavenly Demon came, the killing was just a little more brutal.

With the help of the demon, he could at least do more things and kill more people from the opposite camp. If he could eliminate the royal family, then he would have the final say in the Juer tribe and would be able to eliminate all the chaotic voices. In the next few hundred years, at least while he was alive, the Juer tribe would be able to rest and recuperate in peace.

However, for the sake of so-called "justice", he and others let the "innocent royal family" go, causing him to fail in vain.

In General Juer's opinion, this was another interference by the sect. It seemed that it was the sect's will that the Juer tribe, which had inherited the divine treasure, would never be allowed to develop stably. They had to leave a "tail" to keep the ruler of the Juer tribe busy and unable to concentrate on governing.

They said that General Juer was crazy for engaging in infighting during the war, but in General Juer's view, Ming Jing Zong was also crazy for not forgetting to maintain balance and balancing during the war and causing chaos to the Juer tribe.

"but……"

Gu Fei felt even more depressed and angry. "The royal family really did nothing wrong, especially the young prince Cui Juguang, who was very brave and courageous in leading the troops in battle."

"They had to kill them all... Damn it, how could it turn out like this!"

"Ha." Sun Xuan laughed: "Doesn't this mean that he is a high threat and must be killed?"

“No matter how brave he is, he is just a warrior. How can he be more meritorious than General Juer’s fight with the Shenzang Heavenly Demon? His so-called leading by example is just to attract people’s attention. After a few decades, no one has really seen the battle between General Juer and the Heavenly Demon, but I’m sure everyone will remember that their king led the troops in the battle to defend the city.”

"…The general is wrong. The sect is wrong."

Nan Huaijing closed his eyes and was silent for a while before he said, "We were wrong too."

Nan Huaijing sighed deeply, with a blazing white light in his eyes. His destiny of [Reform and Innovation] was being confirmed: "No matter what, we cannot fight among ourselves during the Great Demon Hunt. The Heavenly Demons are still here, and such actions will only make them stronger and even erode more."

"The sect's management system for the Hundred Departments has indeed made the Hundred Departments exhausted and difficult to develop. Moreover, these have also made the Hundred Departments a hotbed for the pollution of the Heavenly Demons."

"We were wrong, not in stopping it, but in not doing it thoroughly. We should either help the royal family return to the orthodox way and let the general return to the clan with us as a guest elder, or we should bring the little king back to the clan to take care of him until he grows old and sick. In short, we can't let the contradiction continue to exist. We must solve the problem instead of trying to have both and ending up halfway."

"Of course, in my opinion, this is the most wrong thing."

Gu Fei raised his head and thought of that word. He looked at Nan Huaijing and they both said at the same time: "The sect's policy towards the Hundred Tribes of Chenli!"

In the final analysis, by disrupting the internal situation of the Hundred Tribes, the entire Chenli warrior force became easier to control, and this incident itself was very likely the cause of the emergence of the Heavenly Demon.

The battles between the five sects were all carried out using the various tribes as proxies. Their life-and-death struggles were essentially a stage play controlled by the five sects. Although such control might be called subtle, in general, it was nothing more than accumulating dissatisfaction and hatred, and then... allowing the devil to appear.

"The sect's policies must be reformed. If things continue like this, not only will the tribes become disunited, but our Chenli will completely become a den of demons."

Nan Huaijing said firmly: "We stopped fighting among ourselves and prevented the death of innocent people during the demon-suppression campaign. This was obviously right. General Juer intended to eliminate all destabilizing factors so that the tribe could develop well. This was also right. The royal family fought bloody battles to defend the city and wanted to survive and save their lives when they encountered danger. Even if the effect was not great, his behavior was undoubtedly right."

"A wrong beginning will only turn all subsequent correct actions into mistakes... If we want to stop the situation from sliding into the abyss, we must completely change all the sect's relevant policies from beginning to end!"

"Innovation, we must innovate!"

(End of this chapter)