"I'm sorry, your honor. This time it could not be helped. If I hadn't killed him, I couldn't have escaped that artifact," Wei Chen apologized.
"Oh… Lie Ren lied to you. There is a way to get out of that artifact without killing him. Next time you are in the same situation, try torturing the perp first and see if you can escape without killing them," the Lord of Death advised.
"Lastly, as long as you don't personally kill someone, the soul won't be sent here. You may bleed them and leave them to die for all I care, but just do not directly kill them," the Lord of Death added.
"Oh… tha… thank you for your advice, your honor," Wei Chen stuttered. The Lord of Death clearly pissed at having his workload increased.
"Since your points are not sufficient to cover a 10,000-point deduction for killing a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, I will deduct all of your points as punishment for this first-time mistake." With that, the Lord of Death cut the connection.
Wei Chen quickly opened the UI of the redeeming point shop and saw that all his points had vanished… there was only a single zero left. Wei Chen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Now he was certain that if he killed someone directly, his points would be deducted according to the cultivation level of the person he killed.
"Well… at least my boss told me how to work around it," Wei Chen muttered, feeling dejected. He didn't believe he could live a peaceful life without killing anyone in a place where the law of the jungle prevailed.
Speaking of the law of the jungle, from what he had experienced, this place actually seemed more civilized than other regions. There were also enforcers from the Thousand Treasure Hall who played a role similar to the police in his previous world.
The difference was that these enforcers usually killed troublemakers instead of arresting them, unlike the police in his past life.
But that was to be expected. Detaining people who could bend steel with their bare hands would require a serious investment. It was much more efficient to kill them as a deterrent for others.
Of course, systems such as law and government exist, but they only apply to mortals, not cultivators. To enforce the law, one needs the means to do so effectively, and in a world where people can fly and destroy mountains with their bare hands?
Those means are all in the hands of cultivators.
Thinking about this and looking at the lone zero in the redeeming shop, Wei Chen felt a pang of pain, but it couldn't be helped. He needed to continue with the next broadcast so he could earn points as quickly as possible.
The question was… what should he do to maximize the effectiveness of this broadcast?
While thinking about how to achieve that, Wei Chen unconsciously tapped the search button. Since he didn't have any points, the search function returned only items worth zero points or free items.
"Huh? This is…" Wei Chen noticed a certain item in the free section.
Maybe, if it was this item, he could use it to maximize his broadcast's effectiveness.
— Meanwhile —
In the patient room of the medical hall within the Thousand Treasure Pavilion, Yin Lan, the female bodyguard, was lying on the bed in a loose white robe. Her chest was exposed for acupuncture treatment.
Beside her bed were many precious ingredients and pills meant to prolong her life and stabilize her cultivation. The female doctor worked tirelessly to preserve Yin Lan's cultivation and prevent it from collapsing.
But like a cracked dam, it was impossible to stop it completely. The only thing they could do was slow the deterioration of Yin Lan's cultivation. Now her cultivation had been reduced to the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm from the half-step Soul Transformation Realm.
It could be said that Yin Lan's cultivation was being temporarily stabilized by various precious ingredients and pills. Inside the room, seated not far from Yin Lan's bed, Mo Xingyao rested with a worried look. To her, Yin Lan was more like a sister than a subordinate, even though Yin Lan always called her "Young Miss" to maintain social hierarchy.
At that moment, the door opened, revealing a man in his prime dressed in a luxurious black robe embroidered with red patterns, making him look fierce and unyielding. A sword in its scabbard hung in his left hand, which he always carried despite having a storage ring.
His face was handsome, but his eyes carried a fierce and resolute light. His long hair was tied into a high ponytail, giving him the appearance of a dashing yet intimidating leader.
"Father!" Mo Xingyao stood up, her voice full of hope.
The handsome yet fearsome man was none other than Mo Jue, the Sky-Severing Demon Sovereign, patriarch of the Sky-Severing Demon Valley.
"What happened?" Mo Jue asked the doctor first, since she should know the symptoms best.
"Reporting to the patriarch, Guardian Yin's cultivation foundation is collapsing. As for the cause, this servant is incompetent and does not know the reason," the female doctor said submissively.
Hearing this, Mo Jue turned toward his daughter and immediately saw in her eyes that she seemed to know, or at least had some inkling about, the cause.
"Leave us," said Mo Jue.
The female doctor bowed to Mo Jue before excusing herself from the room, leaving him to speak privately with his daughter, Mo Xingyao.
After the doctor left, Mo Jue asked again, "What happened?"
Mo Xingyao hesitated a little before telling her father everything: when it happened, how it happened, and what took place during that time.
After listening to his daughter, Mo Jue fell silent, thinking.
From what he heard, it had happened during the negotiation between the man named Wei Chen and his daughter. The man wanted to use a sword shard as collateral for the damage he caused during his cultivation session.
During that time, the sword shard had been placed on the table. The man claimed the shard was mysterious and that it was one of his top treasures, easily usable as collateral for thirty million spirit stones.
Mo Xingyao had felt nothing from the sword shard. She even tried to use her spiritual sense to probe it, but she detected nothing. She thought the sword was a fake. At that moment, Yin Lan showed signs of cultivation backlash, so Mo Xingyao shooed Wei Chen away before calling him and bringing Yin Lan to the medical hall.
"Where is this sword shard now?" Mo Jue asked.
Mo Xingyao immediately took a wooden box from her storage ring and handed it to her father. The box had been crafted from golden spirit nanmu wood, renowned for containing and preserving precious artifacts. It seemed her daughter already treated the sword shard as a precious artifact, even though she had doubted it before.
Mo Jue took the box and opened the lid. Inside was a sword shard with a metallic sheen that glittered in the sunlight. He immediately felt a sense of dread, apprehension, and awe emanating from the shard. It was the first time he had experienced such a reaction to a sword shard.
The demon patriarch closed his eyes and tried to peel away the lingering presence within the shard.
Within Mo Jue's epiphany space, he saw the same scene Yin Lan had seen: a colossal golden wheel. But this time Mo Jue knew exactly what it was.
"It's… it's the Wheel of Samsara!" Mo Jue gasped at the vision. Then he saw a powerful immortal surrounded by both men and demons, all of them hundreds of times more powerful than Mo Jue himself.
"This… is this a war from the primordial era? It cannot be," Mo Jue muttered in disbelief.
He continued to watch the events unfold. The moment he felt the power of the sword dao from the powerful sword cultivator, he grit his teeth and forcefully ended the epiphany.
Outside the epiphany space, Mo Jue's inner and outer robes were soaked with sweat, as if he had just finished intense exercise. Sweat plastered his hair to his head.
Mo Jue's expression turned serious. He quickly waved his hand and raised a spiritual barrier that sealed off the room. He then turned to Mo Xingyao and asked, "Other than you, Yin Lan, and that man Wei Chen, who else knows about the existence of this sword shard?"
A sense of foreboding entered her heart at her father's question. "I don't know, Father. He said he obtained it from a secret realm long ago. If this shard is as precious as he claimed, he should not have told anyone about it."
"But he brought it out as collateral for only thirty million spirit stones," Mo Jue said.
"What do you mean, Father? Only thirty million spirit stones? That amount could buy a small sect!" Mo Xingyao snapped.
Mo Jue smiled wryly, realizing he had pushed the wrong button and triggered his daughter. He shook his head and his face grew serious once more.
"I do not mean to belittle that sum, Yaoyao. I know exactly how much that is," Mo Jue said, pausing to calm her. Then he continued in a solemn tone, "I will tell you this: if anyone were to learn about the existence of this sword shard, there will be chaos in the world. Blood will stain the earth and war over this shard will erupt."
He continued, "It's not about spirit stones anymore, Yaoyao. This sword shard, to sword path cultivators like me and Yin Lan, is like a supreme secret, a glimpse into the apex that even those haughty bastards in the upper realm cannot compare to."
Hearing this, Mo Xingyao was stunned. "What? It's… it's that dangerous?"
Mo Jue nodded, then turned toward Yin Lan.
"It seems that what happened to Yin Lan was that she was too eager for success, or perhaps she could not restrain her curiosity and gazed upon the primordial supreme secret for too long. This caused her Dao foundation to crumble, leading her cultivation to deteriorate," the demon patriarch analyzed.
At this time, outside the window of the medical hall, a large screen appeared in the sky above the center of the square.
"What's that?" Mo Jue asked, confused by the screen.
"It's the broadcast screen, Father. It's Wei Chen's artifact. Let's see what he's up to," said Mo Xingyao.