281 Illusory Butterfly Formation

"With such a strong person holding the fort, it won't be possible to take over the Crawford Kingdom now. We should have hit them with everything we had instead of being cautious of the Bloodfiend Sect playing tricks behind our backs."

"Everyone already knows that. Don't speak if you have nothing constructive to say."

"Y-You! You do have something against me, don't you?!" The Third Elder was angered, before slowly smirked, "Oh, I think I know why. Is it because I took away your favorite female disciple and played with her for a few days?"

The Fifth Elder's expression became solemnly dark.

"Enough! We should be discussing our next course of action!" Sixth Elder voiced his words, displeased, before suggesting, "Should we pull back all our disciples to avoid our disciples being captured and selling out our own sect's location?"

"That won't work. Even if we did that, there is still Second Elder and the disciples who followed him. The plan would be for naught if they decided to reveal themselves and sell out our sect's location." The Sect Master frowned.

"Have we found out where they are hiding yet? We need to get rid of this ticking time bomb before it bites us back." Fifth Elder said.

"It already 17 years ago. If not for that traitorous Second Elder's interference, we would have succeeded replacing the Crawford Royal family with our pawn and takeover the Crawford Kingdom. But not only did we failed, but the Overseer also came and taught us a lesson." Sixth Elder sighed.

"But if we didn't fail, we would not have learned the existence of Overseers and the people above them. But it was also true that if we had succeeded, then they would not have bothered with us either. After all, the dead cannot be revived."

"I still can't wrap my head around the existence of these people stepping on our heads. How can they be so powerful yet be such gullible idiots as to believe in a fortune teller's words? How is it possible for someone with the destiny to break humanity out of its cage that is the Human Domain, possibly born in that backward kingdom?" A Core Disciple spoke.

"I also find it nonsensical, but what's important isn't what we believe, but what THEY believe. We are too helplessly weak in front of absolute strength." The Third Elder said, before shifting topics.

"Anyway, we don't have to worry about Second Elder too much. He had been struck by my Poison Palm. He would have had no choice but to abolish his cultivation and start over. He can't become powerful and cause any big waves without the resource and the environment to cultivate."

"En, I've guessed that he should be hiding somewhere in the Capital." The Sect Master said, before asking, "Any news from the Blood Mountain? The Sect Master of Bloodfiend Sect had been quiet lately. We could look into—"

Bang!

"Outrageous! Is this the place a lowly outer disciple like you can enter as you want!?" The Third Elder jumped with the intention to kill the outer disciple with a single palm strike.

The outer disciple paled with pure terror. He did not intend to deliver the Spider Queen's words, but it did not stop him from being killed by the enraged elder.

"Stop it, Third Elder! I believe we should at least listen to what this outer disciple has to say first. I believe this disciple would not ignore sect rules and barge into the meeting hall without a proper reason for doing so." Fifth Elder stopped the Third Elder's attack promptly, before saying, "Isn't that right?"

The outer disciple nodded like a pecking duck.

"Dammit, Fifth Elder! You're bent on going against, aren't you?!" 

"Enough, Third Elder. What Fifth Elder said was reasonable. Besides, Eldest Brother had not said anything yet. Don't you think you are acting out of line? Or do you think your authority supersedes Eldest Brother's authority as Sect Master, hmm?" Sixth Elder said.

Third Elder felt a significant amount of anger bottled up inside him. What Sixth Elder said was insidious and vicious, directing pitching him against the Sect Master. 

Feeling the Sect Master's chilly gaze, the Third Elder had no choice but to back down and retract his hand.

"Of course not. I would never think as such. I just thought this outer disciple was extremely rude for disrupting the Sect Master's words." The Third Elder said with an appealing smile, but a bottomless pit of fire was raging on inside.

"What do you think, Eldest Brother?" Sixth Elder asked. 

All the numbered elders and sect master were all fellow direct disciples of the same master, the previous sect master. Still, the way they address each other shows their relationship to one another.

The Sect Master nodded and spoke one word.

"Speak!"

The outer disciple sighed with relief and was about to explain when an inner disciple barged into the hall this time.

"This is bad, Sect Master!"

"What is it?" 

The Sect Master said with a low tone. Having disciples from the sect barge in twice, the new must be important.

"An outsider is killing our disciples outside! I suspect the outsider is a Transcendent!" 

"What about you, what did you want to report?" The Sect Master asked the outer disciple grimly.

"Exactly as the inner disciple had said, Sect Master!" The outer disciple trembled. What was his value if someone else also came to report it?

Instead of exploding with outrage from the news, the elders and core disciples around the table sunk into grim silence with a heavy feeling.

"Did the Overseer come to punish us?"

"This timing is too coincidental. It… should be the case."

The outer disciple opened his mouth, seemingly having something to say but weren't sure whether to say it.

While stuck in a dilemma, the Sect Master noticed this.

"Speak!"

"Y-Yes, Sect Master! I'm not sure who this Overseer the elders mentioned, but this Transcendent is a frightening woman. The Grand Elder, along with the other disciples and the 20,000-strong army was wiped out by this one person alone while we were traveling through to the western parts of Extreme Misty Forest."

The news did not make anyone feel better. It was equally bad as it showed that the Transcendent was powerful, possibly more potent than the Sect Master.

"And you brought this person here?" Third Elder asked impassively.

"Yes." 

The outer disciple quickly answered before his expression warped in horror as he noticed the error in his words.

"I can kill him now, right?" Third Elder asked the Sect Master.

"Go right ahead."

Everyone gave the outer disciple an indifferent look. The outer disciple was pale as a sheet. 

"Mercy, Sect Master! Merc—"

Bam!

The Third Elder slammed his palm down right on top of the outer disciple's head with great force and splattered the entire body, from head to toe, into a bloody mess in the ground. He had taken out all his anger on the outer disciple.

"Let's go see what the intention of this Transcendent is. Perhaps, there was a misunderstanding, and we can negotiate with her and maybe even bring her onto our side." The Sect Master said.

"If we can succeed in this, we will have another chance at winning the war."

Everyone's eyes lit up with hope as they followed the Sect Master outside.

Outside, a few headless corpses had already turned into dozens, while the survivors had long escaped.

Arana had become impatient and told people to get lost from her new home, but the disciples just retreated some distance away. They were all killed after receiving a second warning. 

Seeing so many dead inner disciples, the elders and core disciples all knitted their brows as they shifted their gaze onto the lone figure in the center of all the corpses. 

With her white web-woven dress stained red with blood, Arana was like a beautiful red rose filled with thorns. Although she was beautiful, no one had the heart admire the Spider Queen's beauty.

"Is there some sort of misunderstanding between us, your Excellency? Why must you kill so many of our disciples?" The Sect Master approached with a soft stance, but the Spider Queen was utterly unreasonable.

"No misunderstanding. This Queen had taken a liking to your place and want all of you to get lost. Have you not been informed as such by my messenger?" Arana beamed with a cold smile.

A few elders and core disciples sweated. Who was the messenger? That outer disciple? A few gazes gradually shifted to the Third Elder.

The Third Elder became angry at this and snapped, "What are your intentions by staring at me like this?!"

The Sect Master's brows deeply furrowed. The Illusory Palace was the foundation of their sect, holding over two centuries worth of heritage and resource. There was no way they could give it away.

"Illusory Palace is our sect's foundation. Is it possible to negotiate something else?"

"No negotiation. I wasn't asking, so get lost."

Arana immediately struck with a sweeping kick. The Sect Master was both startled and enraged, but he still guarded with both arms protected by a layer of reinforced yin energy.

However! 

The Sect Master's eyes almost popped out of their sockets in the next instance as an immense force still broke both his layer of defense and his arms and sent him flying into a distant wall with a loud boom!

"Sect Master!"

Everyone cried.

Boom! 

Almost immediately after crashing, a bloodied Sect Master jumped out of the rubbles of the ruined wall and roared, "Goddammit! Just because I was being nice, do you think you can just step all over me!?"

"Illusory Butterfly Formations! Now!" 

The elders and core disciples reacted immediately and quickly surrounded the Spider Queen. Waves and waves of poison yin mist billowed out from their bodies and formed a giant cage with everyone inside.

Everyone's figures grew indistinct as mere shadowy figures within the poison mist cage as the Sect Master flew on top to control the sect's signature Illusory Butterfly Formation that required ten people working in tandem.