Chapter 43: The Prodigy's Fury, a Life-and-Death Showdown!
That cold murderous intent had felt tangible, soaring up from the Healing Institute deep inside the Inner Sect and instantly shrouding half of the Qingyun Sect.
Every disciple sensed that undisguised rage and poisonous hatred; they looked up one after another, hearts full of alarm.
“Such terrifying killing intent! Who is it?”
“That direction… it’s the Healing Institute! Could some elder have slipped into demonic possession?”
“No — this aura… it’s Li Aotian!”
Inner Sect, Healing Institute.
In an excellent quiet room, Li Aotian suddenly opened his eyes; they were rimmed with bloodshot veins.
He had woken.
After being unconscious for a full three days and three nights, he had finally come to.
“Pft—”
The moment he sat up, he felt a sweetness in his throat and another mouthful of blood sprayed onto the bedding before him, a gruesome sight.
His wounds had been about seventy to eighty percent healed under the sect’s medicinal pills.
But the wounds in his heart were deadlier than any external injury!
“Chu! Feng!”
Li Aotian forced those two words out through his teeth; his handsome face had been twisted by ultimate rage, looking somewhat grim.
The scenes before he had slipped into unconsciousness replayed in his mind like a nightmare.
The Ascension Group’s collective betrayal, tens of thousands of people laughing in the hall, Chu Feng’s commentary that looked like pity but was actually mockery…
Humiliation!
An unprecedented, unbearable indignity!
He, Li Aotian, the Inner Sect’s number-one prodigy, the Qingyun Sect’s hope for the future, had been toyed with in such an absurd way by a worthless man born from the Chores Courtyard, becoming the laughingstock of the whole sect!
“Someone!” Li Aotian roared.
Outside the door, two Aotian Alliance followers who had been standing guard scrambled in on hands and knees.
“Senior Brother! You’ve woken!”
“Senior Brother, how do you feel?”
Seeing those two followers, the fire in Li Aotian’s heart calmed a little. Thankfully, his people were still there.
He steadied his body and asked coldly, “How long was I unconscious? What’s the situation outside now? That Chu Feng and his Ascension Group — haven’t they become rats in the street, reviled by all?”
In his thinking, the Ascension Group’s opportunistic, un-cultivated behavior would surely draw the sect’s contempt and spurning.
When he woke, he would rally the righteous to completely eradicate that cult-like organization!
But the two followers’ expressions turned extremely strange.
They stammered and hesitated.
“Speak!” Li Aotian felt a foreboding rise in his chest.
One follower finally could not bear the pressure and, with a sorrowful face, said, “Senior Brother… in the three days you were unconscious, outside… something big happened…”
He trembled as he told Li Aotian, one by one, everything that had occurred in those three days.
From the Ascension Group’s public recruiting, to core members like Wang Teng leading the “rebellion.”
From the Ascension Group setting up various “departments,” to launching the “assembly-line alchemy method.”
And then to them monopolizing the mission hall, even creating a “mission outsourcing platform,” extracting a second layer of exploitation from all lower-level disciples…
Li Aotian listened quietly.
His expression moved from initial fury, to shock, to disbelief, and finally to a deathly gray.
“Wang Teng… Zhao Hu… they… they all sided with Chu Feng?” His voice trembled.
“Yes… yes, Senior Brother…”
“My Aotian Alliance… just… collapsed like that?”
“Basically… almost everyone went to sign up with the Ascension Group…”
“Heh heh… heh heh heh—” Li Aotian suddenly began to laugh softly; the laugh grew louder and ever more hideous, full of endless madness and despair.
“Good! Good job, Chu Feng! Good job, Ascension Group!”
He sprang to his feet.
The wounds on his body burst open again from the emotional agitation; blood stained his white clothes, yet he paid it no mind.
He understood.
He completely understood.
He had lost — utterly and disgracefully.
In scheming for power, buying hearts, and building influence, he, Li Aotian, had been like a three-year-old child compared to Chu Feng.
He had tried to suppress his opponent with open tactics, only to have his foundation dug out by a more advanced open tactic!
He could not comprehend it.
Why had those followers who once obeyed him unquestioningly betrayed him?
Why had those lofty Inner Sect disciples lowered themselves to join a menial-staff organization?
Why would the sect tolerate such a “cult”-like existence and allow it to grow?
He could not understand!
Since he could not understand…
He would stop trying!
A thought of destroying everything had sprouted and spread in his heart.
“You all said I only knew brute force, that my thinking was backward, that I could not keep up with the times…”
“All right!”
“Today, I will use the most primitive, most backward, most uncivil method of brute force to solve all problems!”
A terrifying murderous light exploded in Li Aotian’s eyes.
He shoved the followers before him aside and strode out of the Healing Institute.
He was heading to one place.
Qingyun Sect’s Life-and-Death Platform!
One hour later, the sound of a great bell resounded through the entire Qingyun Sect!
It was the “Life-and-Death Bell,” rung only when a disciple in the sect had sworn a life-and-death pledge and intended to fight until one of them died!
Immediately after, a cold and frenzied voice spread through the sect’s great formation and into everyone’s ears.
“I, Inner Sect disciple Li Aotian!”
“Hereby challenge Chu Feng, president of the Ascension Group… to a life-and-death duel!”
“Chu Feng! You trash who only knows how to play with schemes and tricks! Dare you, like a man, to fight me squarely and honorably?”
“In three days, on the Life-and-Death Platform, I will be waiting for you!”
“If you do not come, you will be the most cowardly dog in the world! I, Li Aotian, will kill you every time I see you! I will kill anyone from your Ascension Group every time I see them!”
These words, full of resolution and madness, sent the entire Qingyun Sect into an uproar!
Li Aotian had been driven insane!
He abandoned everything and gambled all he had to retrieve his dignity by the most extreme means!
Now, the pressure fell on Chu Feng’s side.
All eyes turned toward the Ascension Group’s headquarters.
Would he dare to accept the challenge?