Preparation

Seth slowly staggered past the child's severed head and continued forward. The snow crunched under his feet, as he advanced towards the grim mountain of corpses.

"..."

He did not even know what to say. He did not know who to put the blame on. Why is it that the innocent die? Why do good people have to suffer the most? Old man Shiro and his family were the darn nicest people that Seth had ever met, yet he could never do anything to help them. He grimaced slightly, and his stomach churned as he climbed the mountain of mutilated corpses, each one with a gaping hole where their hearts should have been, but his heart stopped beating as he saw the corpse of the little girl. She had a distant look on her face, and her bright emerald eyes had lost their shine, mostly because one of them was missing. But that was only the top of the iceberg, as the side of her head had been cleaved in two. A dreadful deep gash ran through her pink hair, and dried crimson blood dyed the rest of her head. Her kimono was also blood soaked, serving as evidence that she had been stabbed. The hole where her left eye should have been, still bore even more cut marks. They had stabbed her, cut out her eye while she was still alive, and then cleaved her head open with an axe before taking away her heart. The face of her corpse overlapped with the cute vibrant face she had while she was alive, making his nose sting and tears form in his eyes. Annoying as she was, she was like a little sister to him. He honestly did not even know how to feel. Old man Shiro and his wife had of better, as they were stabbed in the chest, and also had their hearts taken away, like everyone else.

Seth slowly dragged their bodies down, and laid them in a row before him. Looking at them together in death, caused him to remember what they were like when they were alive, and a wave of anger washed over his entire being.

"Why?!!! Why can't people just fucking live their lives in peace?! We're all freaking humans for god's sake! Who the hell did this?!! WHY did they do this?!!"

He fell on his knees before the corpses as tears fell freely from his face.

'Why?'

Old man Shiro had been nothing but nice to him. He had promised... No, he had sworn to repay the old merchant, but now he was dead. The spirit grade sucrose herb was crushed into a pulp, as he clenched his fists tightly. He could not repay the old merchant now, but he could avenge their deaths.

"I swear on my life. That I shall drag those sick bastards who did this, and I will behead their families all before you! They will feel the same pain you all did, feel the fear you all did, and suffer as much as they made you all suffer. They will wish to die an agonizing death, and I will make sure that death eludes them. If I do not, then let me die an even more agonizing death!"

***

Blazing Valor sect.

Lee Xiaoping frowned as he stared at the three thousand disciple strong army he had trained by himself. Anytime soon, The Imperial Sky Emperor would descend from the heavens, and then the trial would begin. In the past three months, they had all trained profusely without rest. In the morning, they trained with weapons, by noon, they cultivated till midnight, by midnight they had a large meal made entirely out of spirit grade herbs and magic cultivation enhancing pills, only to continue the routine the next morning.

Before the army of disciples, Lee Chun Hua stood tall. Grim determination burned within the depths of her soul, and she was ready to cut down anyone standing in her path. She was, perhaps, the one who trained the most. Surviving only on Universal Chi and her own Qi, for the past three months, she had not even once seen the light of day. She trained with her jian alone for three days straight, cultivated intensely for two weeks, and studied her other persona's ways in order to get hold of her body's potential. At the beginning of it all, three months ago, she could barely scratch three percent of her body's innate potential, but today, she could harness well over five percent. Most times even managing to scratch the boundaries of ten. Everyone had grown exponentially powerful, but Lee Xiaoping still feared for his daughter. She had to survive, and make sure that she returned home in one piece. Everything he did for the sect disciples was actually just for show, as their true purpose was to serve as meat shields for his daughter.

She was the rock on which the Blazing Valor sect stood, and without her, who would handle the affairs of the great sect once he became the Ashen Flame clan head?

The Blazing Valor sect could not afford to fall, and he could not afford to lose his only daughter. But, an army of two thousand disciples of the Qi refinement realm would be enough to make sure that she survived,... right?

***

Grey Palace, Ashen Flame Clan.

As the Blazing Valor sect made their preparations, placing Chun Hua's survival above all the others, the Ashen Flame sect did the exact same thing. Lee Su Han had amassed a thousand disciple strong army for his first granddaughter, Xin Minxia. However he could not bear the insolent nonchalance of the young woman. How could she be so relaxed when the lives of almost all the cultivators was lying in a balance? Hundreds of thousands would perish, and she had to survive! Yet, she spent all her time reading those dammed brown scrolls that he did not even know where she had gotten them from, instead of cultivating and advancing realms.