Chapter 787 Return to Sunlance Academy
The puppet struggled for less than three seconds before exploding with a deafening boom, scattering fragments across the ground.
“Kael, destroying a puppet like that accomplishes almost nothing,” Amir said. “If you truly want to retaliate, you need to strike Sunlance Academy somewhere it will hurt. Kill one of their Vice Deans, for example.”
“I have my own plans.”
Kael turned toward the senior human cultivators gathered around him.
“Amir, Malcolm, Adrian, Lucian, Tessa—I’ll be leaving Skyfire Planet for a while. While I’m gone, I need all of you to protect humanity.”
A sudden thought made him pause.
“Malcolm, if the opportunity arose... would you be willing to accept a disciple?”
“What do you have in mind?” Malcolm asked.
“My daughter, Tanya, appears to have considerable talent for formations. I was wondering whether you might be willing to—”
“I am.”
Kael hadn’t even finished speaking before Malcolm agreed.
Adrian and the others looked at him with renewed surprise.
Ever since Malcolm had become a Formation Master, he had never accepted a disciple. His solitary nature made him dislike prolonged interaction with others.
Yet he had accepted before Kael could even finish asking.
“Thank you, Malcolm.”
Kael gave him a grateful nod, then took out an Astral Compass.
An Astral Compass was a rare treasure even among Great Ascension cultivators.
Kael, however, had no shortage of them.
A short while later, someone answered from the other side.
“Harper, bring Tanya to Skyfire Planet at once. I’ve found her a mentor.”
“Malcolm?” Harper asked immediately.
“You’ll know when you get here.”
Kael almost laughed.
Harper was far too perceptive. Give her a single clue, and she could usually figure out the rest on her own.
“All right.”
Harper severed the connection.
Kael put away the Astral Compass.
“Then I’ll leave Skyfire Planet in your hands. Amir, Malcolm—everyone, I’ll be going ahead.”
With that, Kael shot into the sky.
Every additional day he delayed going to Sunlance Academy meant another three thousand humans would die.
More importantly, many of the humans at Sunlance Academy had treated him well in the past.
Kael could not stand by and allow them to be slaughtered.
Before long, he arrived at the Phantasmal Oasis and stepped directly into the center of its teleportation array. Several streams of Origin Power flowed from his hands and entered the formation.
The stellar teleportation array slowly began to rotate.
Faster.
Then faster still.
White light erupted from its center.
Kael disappeared.
After traveling through space for some time, the familiar dizziness finally subsided.
When Kael regained his bearings, he found himself standing without warning inside Sunlance Academy’s central teleportation array.
It was the very array Solvaris had constructed years ago.
“Who’s there?”
“What—Kael?”
The four Golden Dragon cultivators guarding the array recoiled in shock.
All warmth vanished from Kael’s features.
He flicked his fingers four times.
Four muffled impacts sounded in rapid succession.
The Golden Dragons collapsed where they stood, their souls destroyed along with their bodies.
Kael hesitated briefly before propping the four corpses upright beside one another. From a distance, they appeared to be standing guard with their backs to the teleportation array.
Of course, the deception would fall apart the instant anyone came close enough to use the formation.
Kael knew he had little time.
His solid body gradually turned ethereal.
A moment later, he crossed a vast distance and appeared inside Sunlance Academy’s spirit herb garden.
Two Golden Dragon guards leaned against the entrance, chatting casually.
“Kael will probably come back. The Vice Dean said he would, so we’d better stay alert over the next few days. We can’t let him sneak into the herb garden.”
“Of course he’ll return. If he doesn’t, every human in Sunlance Academy will eventually be slaughtered.”
Kael’s jaw set.
With several silent shifts, he moved into the air above the herb garden.
Now that he had reached the Galactic Great Circle, the precision of his Spiritual Sense had improved tremendously.
Sure enough, a careful scan revealed that the aerial Restrictions surrounding the herb garden had been disguised. Several additional Restrictions had also been concealed within the original defenses.
A humorless smile touched Kael’s lips.
His body stretched into a thin white strand nearly a hundred feet long. It slipped through a narrow gap between the Restrictions before reforming beside the Immortal’s remains.
Another set of Restrictions protected the remains themselves.
Kael studied them for a moment, then took out a piece of Substitution Spiritwood.
This unusual wood could imitate virtually any shape.
At Kael’s command, the wood twisted and changed until it perfectly resembled the Immortal’s remains.
A faint white glow surrounded Kael’s right hand as he activated his Radiant Spirit Root.
At the Galactic Great Circle, he could use his Radiant Spirit Root to bypass almost any Restriction.
He could even deceive Restrictions laid down by Eternal Realm cultivators, though only for a short time.
Kael carefully passed through three layers of Restrictions and closed his fingers around the Immortal’s remains.
With a thought, he swept them into his spatial ring.
He immediately placed the transformed Substitution Spiritwood inside the Restrictions to take their place.
The most important treasure was finally his.
Kael turned his attention to the rest of the herb garden.
Rare spirit herbs and medicinal plants grew everywhere.
He began harvesting them without restraint.
By the time he finished, nearly the entire garden had been stripped bare. Only immature spirit herbs and a handful of plants too worthless to interest him remained.
Kael wasn’t done yet.
He pressed both feet into the soil and activated his Dark Spirit Root.
Dense strands of black energy spread outward from beneath his feet, seeping through the earth until they covered the entire spirit herb garden.
The corrosive power of his Dark Spirit Root would slowly damage the remaining plants as they grew.
The effects would not become obvious immediately.
Only after the herbs matured and Sunlance Academy’s alchemists attempted to use them would they discover that the medicinal plants had become poisonous and completely unusable.
Once he finished sabotaging the garden, Kael quietly slipped out of the spirit herb grounds and flew toward the human servant quarters.
Before he could reach them, a furious shout rang out in the distance.
“All of you, kneel!”
The voice belonged to a Heavenly Dragon elder.
Kael’s attention snapped toward the servant quarters.
He immediately concealed himself in midair.
Ahead of him, three thousand humans had already had their cultivation sealed and were being forced to kneel on the ground.
Not one of them cried out or resisted.
They simply waited in despair for death to come.
Humanity had no Eternal Realm cultivator to protect it.
Nor was any powerful race willing to show them mercy.
Faced with the Heavenly Dragons, these people had no strength to resist. All they could do was wait silently to die.
At that moment, a figure flashed into existence in the distance.
A familiar man appeared above the servant quarters.
Valerius.
Kael immediately grew wary.
Valerius was around Eternal Tier 7.
If he revealed himself, Kael had no confidence that he could escape.
Even among Eternal Realm cultivators, Valerius was exceptionally formidable.
The Heavenly Dragon cultivators did not bow upon his arrival.
Instead, they charged into the kneeling humans and began killing them.
Still ethereal and concealed in the air, Kael gripped the edge of his robe.
He forced himself to remain still.
A larger plan was already in motion.
Otherwise, no matter the danger, he would have rushed forward to save them.
A faint hum filled the air.
A shadow separated from Valerius’s body.
It was another puppet he had refined.
“Kael destroyed one of my puppets,” Valerius said calmly. “Don’t hold back. Kill another three thousand and send those heads to him as well.”
“Oh.”
The Heavenly Dragon elder neither agreed respectfully nor acknowledged Valerius’s authority.
He merely responded with a flat, indifferent “Oh.”
Kael caught the subtle disrespect immediately.
The Heavenly Dragon Race clearly harbored resentment toward the Golden Dragon Vice Dean.
Another three thousand humans were brought forward.
Kael watched from beginning to end, forcing himself to remember everything he saw.
Hidden killing formations surrounded the execution ground.
The moment he revealed himself, the Heavenly Dragon elder could activate them and kill every prisoner before Kael reached them.
His appearance would also alert the Dean and cause the academy to begin slaughtering the far larger number of humans still trapped in the servant compounds.
Intervening now would expose him without saving the prisoners before him. As unbearable as it was, he had to remain hidden until the academy’s senior experts separated and he could strike without placing the remaining captives in even greater danger.
Some time later, six thousand severed heads had been collected inside a spatial ring.
The ring was placed on one of the puppet’s fingers.
The puppet blurred and shot toward the central teleportation array.