Chapter 785 A Wedding Stained with Blood
“Would you like to talk in the back hall?” Selene asked.
“Of course.”
Kael nodded and followed her inside.
...
Sunlance Academy, servant quarters.
Several thousand humans knelt in orderly rows across a vast square, their hands bound behind their backs.
Cultivators of the Heavenly Dragon Race surrounded them on all sides.
“Vice Dean, may we begin?”
A Stellar Realm elder of the Heavenly Dragon Race turned toward Valerius.
“You’re avenging your brother. I have no objection.” Valerius stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “Go ahead. Send their heads to Kael afterward.”
“Understood.”
The Heavenly Dragon elder walked to the front of the captive humans.
“You have committed no crime. In fact, none of you have done anything wrong. But if you want someone to blame for your deaths, blame Kael. He killed Rhazorn of the Heavenly Dragon Race, so three thousand humans will follow Rhazorn to the grave.”
His gaze swept across the prisoners.
“If you must hate someone, hate Kael. He chose to make an enemy of the Heavenly Dragon Race without caring what would happen to the rest of you.”
With that, he signaled the cultivators beside him.
The Heavenly Dragons drew their flying swords and descended upon the crowd of humans, whose cultivation had already been sealed.
Screams tore through the servant quarters.
Blood soaked the ground as flying swords cut through the helpless prisoners.
In less than fifteen minutes, all three thousand captives had been slaughtered. Many of their bodies had been torn apart by the indiscriminate attacks.
Several of the dead women had even been pregnant.
“That’s enough,” Valerius said calmly. “Send a puppet to deliver their heads to Skyfire Planet.”
“Vice Dean!”
The Heavenly Dragon cultivators, still stained with blood, dropped to their knees.
“Kael killed Rhazorn after you sent him there. Please uphold justice for the Heavenly Dragon Race!”
Valerius sighed and glanced at the patches of stone spreading across his wrist.
“If you can lure Kael somewhere near Sunlance Academy, I can strike at him once. But if you expect me to cross half the galaxy and hunt him down wherever he happens to be, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
Resentment immediately welled up within the Heavenly Dragon cultivators.
Kael was certainly hateful, but Valerius was hardly any better.
He had sacrificed one of their Stellar Realm elders without showing the slightest regret. Now, he wasn’t even willing to hunt Kael down and avenge Rhazorn himself.
They knew nothing about the petrification that slowly consumed Eternal Realm cultivators.
As far as they were concerned, Valerius simply didn’t care enough to avenge one of their own.
Worse yet, Rhazorn’s death could be blamed almost entirely on the Vice Dean standing before them.
If Valerius hadn’t forced Rhazorn to travel to Skyfire Planet, how could Rhazorn possibly have died there?
For the first time, a rift began to form between Valerius and the senior cultivators of the Heavenly Dragon Race.
...
Today, the outer grounds of the Star River Sect were overflowing with people.
Nearly every prominent cultivator on the Heavenfall Continent had come.
There were so many visitors that the sect could no longer accommodate them all. Cultivators from the lower realms were forced to remain outside, wandering the surrounding area in the hope of catching even a glimpse of the legendary figure who had returned.
Meanwhile, the Star River Sect’s trial grounds were packed with powerful cultivators and distinguished guests whose identities had earned them a place inside.
The City Lord of Kael City was one such guest.
He was only in the Nascent Soul Realm, but because he governed the city that had grown from Kael’s old home village, he had still been granted a seat.
The current head of the Lin clan and several elders from the ancestral hall were also present.
Beyond them sat the high-ranking cultivators who had traveled through the teleportation arrays from the other four continents.
In truth, these people had wanted to visit Kael from the moment they learned of his return.
His dual-cultivation wedding had simply given them the perfect excuse.
If their forces ever came into conflict with the Star River Sect, even the slightest personal connection with Kael might allow them to mediate before the situation became irreparable.
Kael swept his gaze across the enormous gathering.
Almost every face belonged to an unfamiliar cultivator from the younger generations.
He vaguely recognized a few of the older cultivators, but they had aged so much that he could no longer put names to their faces.
As the Star River Sect’s longtime Acting Sect Master, Caleb Cheng had naturally been chosen to serve as the master of ceremonies.
“All right! Let the ceremony begin!”
Caleb’s voice boomed across the trial grounds, instantly silencing the conversations below.
Before long, the unusual wedding ceremony was underway.
Seraphyne and Calla appeared in elaborate crimson bridal robes, ornate phoenix crowns resting atop their heads. Red bridal veils concealed their faces as Aria and the others slowly escorted them toward the ceremonial platform.
“Aria, you really don’t need to support me,” Seraphyne said quietly. “The veil may block my eyes, but I can still see where I’m going with my Spiritual Sense.”
She still knew very little about human wedding customs.
“It’s tradition,” Aria replied with a soft laugh. “Just go along with it.”
For the first time, Kael had exchanged his usual green robes for something different.
Today, he wore an elaborate crimson ceremonial robe, its vivid color making him even more striking than usual.
Calla was escorted by her mother, Selene.
Selene herself was dressed like a noble matron. The years had done nothing to diminish her beauty. If anything, they had lent her the calm grace of a mature woman.
As Selene slowly raised her head, her gaze met Kael’s.
They both looked away almost immediately.
At last, Seraphyne and Calla reached the foot of the ceremonial dais, accompanied by Aria and Selene.
“Kael, what are you still doing up there?” Rook called out with a laugh. “Are you planning to officiate your own wedding alongside Caleb?”
A hint of embarrassment crossed Kael’s face, and he immediately stepped down.
This was his first time marrying according to traditional human customs.
He hadn’t expected the ceremony to involve so many formalities.
“Everyone,” Caleb began, addressing the assembled guests, “today, we are gathered to celebrate the dual-cultivation wedding of Patriarch Kael of the Star River Sect and his two brides: Calla of the human race and Seraphyne of the Heavenly Phoenix Race.
“However, many of Kael’s mortal clansmen are attending today. For that reason, we will be following the customs of a traditional mortal wedding rather than the formal rites normally observed at a cultivator’s dual-cultivation wedding.”
His explanation immediately stirred whispers among the guests.
“The Heavenly Phoenix Race?”
“Patriarch Kael is marrying a Heavenly Phoenix?”
“That can’t be right. She must simply possess Heavenly Phoenix True Blood.”
“That must be it. How could a true Heavenly Phoenix ever marry a human?”
The cultivators of the Heavenfall Continent judged the situation according to the limits of their own experience.
Kael heard every word.
He simply couldn’t be bothered to explain.
Instead, he obediently took his place between his two brides.
“First bow—to Heaven, your father!”
At Caleb’s announcement, Kael and his two brides turned toward the sky and bowed.
“Second bow—to Earth, your mother!”
Kael paused.
Something about this was beginning to sound wrong.
Still, when his two brides bowed, he followed their lead.
“Third bow—to mankind, your elder brother!”
Caleb’s voice rang across the trial grounds.
Kael stared at him, speechless.
“Caleb... this is starting to sound less like a wedding and more like an initiation into some kind of brotherhood.”
“Hahaha!”
Caleb laughed without the slightest embarrassment.
“It’s been so many years that I completely forgot the old human wedding rites. But that doesn’t matter. I came up with a new version.”
Kael had no response to that.
“Husband and wives, bow to one another!”
Caleb called out once more.
Kael turned toward Seraphyne and Calla, and the three exchanged ceremonial bows.
“To the bridal chambers!”
Selene and Aria immediately stepped forward and escorted Calla and Seraphyne to their respective bridal chambers.
Kael would spend the first half of the night in Calla’s chamber and the second half in Seraphyne’s.
The arrangement was a little complicated, but Kael was more than satisfied with the lively atmosphere.
Before he could give it any further thought, several of the Star River Sect’s old-timers dragged him toward the banquet tables and began pouring him cup after cup of spirit wine.
The guests who had come to offer their congratulations could only exchange baffled looks.
None of them had ever witnessed such a bizarre dual-cultivation wedding.
Aside from the fact that all three people involved were cultivators, it seemed no different from an ordinary mortal wedding.
Fortunately, Kael proved remarkably approachable.
Instead of remaining on the dais and accepting congratulations from afar, he went from table to table, personally sharing a toast with every group of guests.
When he reached one particular table, a masked man rose to his feet.
“You are...?”
Kael studied him more closely.
There was something familiar about the man’s aura.
Without saying a word, the stranger tore off his mask.
A familiar face appeared beneath it.