BXBX NOVEL Chapter 306: The Celestial Charm Sect
Chapter 306: The Celestial Charm Sect
A group of people and horses suddenly rushed into the empty main street. Despite their large, swift strides, their steps didn't make a sound.
They were dressed in black clothes and black armor and had long swords hanging at their waists.
As they moved through the street in the dark of the night, they almost looked like ghosts, barely visible to the naked eye.
There were many more hazy figures in the sky, indicating the troop's massive size.
The few lamps that lit up the street died out in succession as the black-clad people passed by. Darkness flooded the area with every step they took.
Still in complete silence, they eventually arrived at a residence. If a person were to look down at the scene from above, they would see that hazy figures had completely surrounded the residence, so much so that nothing would be able to slip out.
The signboard hanging above the entrance of the residence had been inscribed with one word: Xunyang.
There were very few among the common folk living in Solaris City who did not know of this place. It was home to the extraordinary Young Noble Xunyang.
He could carve prosthetic limbs from spirit wood, and he would use his divine abilities to make them indistinguishable from the real thing once they were attached to a person's body. Moreover, he never charged for this service. He only asked that they do him a favor when he needed one. As for what the favor would be, that would depend on what the person who owed him the favor could do.
For example, the head chef of The Fragrant Cassia[1] had lost a finger while chopping vegetables. After Young Noble Xunyang gave the head chef a new finger, he asked the head chef to prepare a fine meal for his friends. When Young Noble Xunyang gave Landlord Liu from the east side of the city a new leg, he'd asked Landlord Liu to do a charitable deed—provide porridge to the poor for three days. Then when Young Noble Xunyang gave a poor farmer outside the city a new arm, he'd just asked for a few cabbages in return.
Over time, the people of Solaris City regarded him as a living Buddha.
Yet, today, these black figures surrounded the place like dark clouds looming over the city. In a flash, they had all raised their sabers, their blades glinting in the light!
Before they could charge in, the residence's entrance doors creaked ajar on their own, swinging wide open to reveal a large courtyard. Past the courtyard was the main hall, where an azure-robed nobleman was reclining languidly in a chair.
"Dear friends outside, where have you all come from?" Young Noble Xunyang asked. "I don't recall offending anyone."
"We're the Black-Clothed Guards from the Night Dragon Hall!"
The person leading the charge held out a token of a black-iron coiling dragon.
Young Noble Xunyang narrowed his eyes as he muttered, "People from the capital of Yu are here...?"
As the prosperous ruling dynasty of the nine provinces, the Yu Dynasty naturally possessed a force of formidable cultivators. At the very least, that force had to be stronger than all the sects. Otherwise, how could the imperial court intimidate the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten?
In terms of cultivators, the Yu Dynasty had, of course, the reigning imperial family, the Xia Family. They were an old aristocratic clan that was also an immortal sect. There were also the sects within the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten that were aligned with the imperial court.
The imperial court's exclusive force of cultivators mainly consisted of three divisions.
The first division was naturally the Imperial Supervisory Bureau. The Imperial Supervisory Bureau oversaw all the City Supervisory Divisions of the nine provinces’ major cities and appointed the city supervisors to their respective stations. The bureau also had a group of powerful cultivators on standby in the capital of Yu, ready to be dispatched to handle any seemingly unresolvable issues in the cities.
The Imperial Supervisory Bureau was headed by the esteemed Imperial Commanding Supervisor. It received orders directly from the emperor to protect the people of the state, making it the most important division of cultivators in the dynasty.
The second division was the High Heavens Pavilion, located within the imperial city. It was named the High Heavens Pavilion due to the tagline, "The immortal realm has the High Heavens Hall, and the mortal realm has the High Heavens Pavilion.[2]" The cultivators in the High Heavens Pavilion were idle but powerful. Those willing to work for the imperial court could sign on with the pavilion and receive the generous salary of a government official.
Unlike the Imperial Supervisory Bureau, the High Heavens Pavilion was not fully subordinate to the imperial court, and the cultivators in this division did not need to constantly be on standby for orders. Rather, they were akin to the imperial family's honored allies.
Only top-tier cultivators at the sixth realm and above could be part of the High Heavens Pavilion. Most of them were idle Eminent Ones, so the pavilion only had a small number of members. They had joined the High Heavens Pavilion mainly to express their goodwill toward the imperial court.
The third division was the Night Dragon Hall. The Night Dragon Hall referred to the place where the emperor did his work at night. There were imperial guards that had to patrol the imperial city on the outside, so over time, the ones that guarded the inside of the city collectively came to be known as the Night Dragon Hall.
The first two divisions of cultivators were more loyal and devoted to the state, rather than the emperor.
Governmental departments like the Imperial Supervisory Bureau existed in every dynasty and worked to defend the human territories. The Imperial Supervisory Bureau was a powerful division, but it was primarily used to protect the state. The emperor couldn't simply order them to do as he wished.
In comparison, the High Heavens Pavilion was more flexible in the work its cultivators could take on. Nevertheless, the emperor still could not rely on them for extremely important tasks.
The Night Dragon Hall was the only division that could truly be considered as the emperor's private army! They obeyed all of the emperor's orders unconditionally!
The imperial city's inner guards consisted of seven units known as the Seven Guards of the Night Dragon, each with its own duties. The Black-Clothed Guards was one of those units, and they were responsible for infiltration, reconnaissance, assassination, and night raids.
Whenever people across the Yu Dynasty saw the black-clothed troops of the Night Dragon Hall, they knew something major had happened.
The Black-Clothed Guard holding the token continued, "We have discovered surviving members of the Celestial Charm Sect here. Everyone in this residence is under arrest. Any resistance will be met with lethal force!"
Young Noble Xunyang gasped in shock.
He furrowed his brows and shouted, "We're innocent!"
Boom!
The rumble of an explosion reverberated throughout Solaris City in the dead of night.
...
"The Celestial Charm Sect?" Chu Liang muttered to himself.
After the Heavenly Star Divine Cult split up, one of the factions that emerged was the Celestial Charm Sect. It could be said that the Celestial Charm Sect was the main cause of the split.
The Celestial Charm Sect's cultivation legacy specialized in manipulating people and causing chaos in the world. The other sects that emerged from the split took root in the martial world, but the members of the Celestial Charm Sect dove straight into the imperial court.
They concealed their identities and infiltrated the imperial court, the imperial city, and even the imperial harem. They worked in secret to wreak havoc, nearly causing a massive upheaval in the Yu Dynasty. Fortunately, they were suppressed in time. Ultimately, the imperial court and the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten joined hands to hunt down the members of the Celestial Charm Sect.
The Celestial Charm Sect was brutally purged from the Yu Dynasty. Most of the sect's members were decapitated; only a few managed to escape. In the years that followed years, any disciples of the Celestial Charm Sect that surfaced were immediately struck down.
The approach that the Yu Dynasty took to suppress the Celestial Charm Sect was far more intense than the approach it had taken toward eliminating other evil forces. In fact, that approach was even harsher than the methods the Yu Dynasty normally used against diabolical sects.
The root cause lay in the Heavenly Star Divine Cult's cultivation method. They practiced the Heavenly Star Divine Arts, aligning themselves with the celestial bodies[3]. The higher their cultivation level got, the more they had to conform to the nature of the celestial bodies.
For example, the Celestial King Sect embodied righteousness and solemnity, the Sea King Sect acted freely and without restraint, and the Celestial Pivot Pavilion was an information-spreading machine... There were subtle differences between the disciples of each sect, but they all embodied the common traits of their sect.
The Dark King Sect was all about cold and ruthless massacres, which was why they ultimately became a diabolical sect. The Seven Killings Star was known for its vicious and cunning nature, so its members were best suited to become assassins.
However, the harm that the Celestial Charm Sect caused was even greater than that of the Dark King Sect and the Seven Killings Star. That was because their cultivation legacy was meant to bring chaos to the world!
For the members of the Celestial Charm Sect to achieve their full potential, they had to throw the world into chaos and cause rivers of blood!
They would be agents of chaos no matter where they went. This was why both the imperial court and the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten were extremely vigilant against them.
In Di Nufeng's words, "If the members of the Celestial Charm Sect infiltrate the imperial court, they'll be like a stick stirring up shit."
Therefore, when the Mount Shu Sect discovered that Lu Chengchou had been supported by the Celestial Charm Sect, they immediately announced this news to the world. On one hand, it was to alert the nine provinces to be wary of the Celestial Charm Sect's resurgence; on the other hand, it was to demonstrate that what Lu Chengchou represented was cunning and evil.
Mount Shu had won the battle against the Dark King Sect, but the things Lu Chengchou had said had been spread around as well. That caused many people outside the Mount Shu Sect to doubt Venerable Wen Yuan's character.
Consequently, Mount Shu released the information about the Celestial Charm Sect to prove that everything Lu Chengchou had said had been to throw the Mount Shu Sect into chaos. That included all the personal attacks on Venerable Wen Yuan. Nothing Lu Chengchou had said could be trusted.
Additionally, the Mount Shu Sect publicly condemned the Penglai Supreme Sect for having assisted Lu Chengchou that day.
The Penglai Supreme Sect immediately explained that Enlightened Bai Lin had merely been trying to keep the situation under control at a time when nothing was certain. Later, when Lu Chengchou colluded with the Dark King Sect and attacked Mount Shu, Enlightened Bai Lin led the Penglai Supreme Sect's troops and killed many diabolical cultivators.
Of course, this level of bickering wouldn't lead to much of a conclusion.
After getting a grasp on the general situation, Chu Liang didn't think much of it, since such matters weren't for someone of his level to deal with.
Now, he faced another problem.
The Mount Shu Sect had issued more sword coins. That meant his riches were depreciating rapidly!
1. Chinese cinnamon ☜
2. In Daoism, the High Heavens Hall is the Jade Emperor(ruler of the immortal realm)’s throne hall, where he receives the homage of various deities. It’s likely that’s why the one in the mortal realm is named a pavilion, not a hall. ☜
3. Objects in space like planets etc. ☜