PtM Book 17 - Chapter 9: Righteous Blood

VPN is finally working again, so I'm going to upload all the chapters for the rest of the month as scheduled releases. There are 4, including this one, to make up for the fact that I deleted the prologue and will convert it to an epilogue.

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The Blood God Region was slightly larger than the Azure Tempest Region, and thanks to its bountiful resources, it was occupied by more sects as well. The Blood God Sect had thirty subsidiary Tier 2 sects, and each of these Tier 2 sects had anywhere between 6 and 10 Tier 3 sects that managed the lower sects in their region.

Not every sect was a blood sect, but all enforcer sects were blood sects. All told, there were roughly 200-300 Tier 3 sects that could serve as potential targets for Cha Ming’s guerilla warfare, in addition ot thousands of Tier 4 sects as well.

Cha Ming would naturally not target innocent sects. Some sects barely eked out a living by serving as blood farms, while others only reluctantly contributed their services in the south, or actively patrolled their territories as fiends while remaining fair to their neighbors.

The four Blood Leaf Sect elders and Sect Master Unbroken Branch were of great help in determining who stood where. They had lived for thousands of years, and were intricately versed in the character of most sects, and could therefore predict whether these sects would capitulate, break, or bend under new management.

They visited many sects that were more likely to resist but found that had already been destroyed. Others were sentenced to blood farm punishment, and it was not difficult to convince these sects to pack up all their belongings and join the resistance in the Clear Sky World.

Thanks to the time acceleration in the Clear Sky World, it was an easy matter to nurse these cultivators back to health and organize a fighting group. Cha Ming led them to attack the Tier 3 and Tier 4 enforcer sects. It was there that most of the ill-gotten blood in the region was gathered; destroying or stealing these blood pools would cause the most harm to the Blood God Sect.

Not all enforcer sects were cut from the same cloth, so Cha Ming was still careful in his approach. He used various disguises to infiltrate them and identify those who’d only reluctantly taken part in collecting blood. Their reluctance was easy to verify, as their blood pools contained minimal resentment.

Some, he was able to convince, but others had to be forcefully relocated. This was a necessary step, because once Cha Ming and the rebels started attacking full force, it was these sects that would first come under pressure by the Blood God Sect and their minions.

It was only after sweeping away most of these reluctant sects that Cha Ming and the rebels went out for blood. They targeted the most vicious sects and killed them to the last. Cha Ming was well aware that doing so would result in the deaths of innocents, but there was no other way. Time was too short to sort through all the details.

Enforcer sects were a minority in the Blood God Region. Only 20% of the sects of each tier was an enforcer sect. They were able to act with impunity because the Blood God Sect backed them.

Months passed, and the behavior of these sects improved. Cha Ming and the rebels had killed chickens to warn the monkeys. Misdeeds would not be tolerated, and the forceful gathering of blood, and especially the destruction of entire sects and cities had to end.

Yet this ran contrary to the Blood God Sect’s goals, and as a result, their harvesting activities slowed to a crawl. They were caught between a rock and a hard place, and as such, the supply of fresh blood that kept the sects going dried up.

In the first week, Cha Ming hit ten Tier 3 sects, and sixty Tier 4 sects. They struck like lightning and left nothing behind. The Blood God Sect, thinking this was only a minor uprising, directed allied sects to defend their most valuable territories, only to discover that minor moves were useless before Cha Ming’s swift flight patterns and lightning offensive.

By the end of the first month, and Cha Ming had destroyed a quarter of their low-level enforcer sects and rescued a similar portion of their low-level blood farms. Years of groundwork were undone in only the fraction of the time.

The Blood God Sect could only pull back some forces and have these sects turtle up. It became much harder for Cha Ming and the rebels to attack. The number of sects they visited shrank to a few per day, and in opposite parts of the Blood God Territory.

But the attacks didn’t stop, and until they did, it would be impossible to restore stability. More forces were pulled back, and patrolling cultivator ships became more common. It became impossible to enter or leave a city or sect without passing through a rigorous inspection.

Eventually, there were no targets left that could be taken by force. But Cha Ming was a resourceful man. If brute force wasn’t working, he had plenty of stealthier means to rely.

He began to rely more on infiltration. Instead of a sneak attack, he would sneak into their blood pools and drain away three quarters of them. He would paint formation traps all across their sects over the course of an entire day before launching an attack and use these formation traps to destroy their defences before they could even activate.

Sometimes, he didn’t even need formations. By slowly destroying pieces of the sect and replacing them with painted replicas, he was able to rob the sects, then have these paintings self-destruct. The Blood God Region was helpless against this approach because every time, Cha Ming would strike and leave within minutes.

Not all the battles were easily won. Many of the rebel cultivators were killed in these offenses, or suffered crippling injuries.

But they did not relent. They did not give up. These people had lost everything to the Blood God Sect. Their determination resonated with Cha Ming’s three auras. Cha Ming realized that this too was hope, but of a different kind.

Sometimes, one did not hope for a better future. When pain and loss crossed a threshold, all that remained was a desire for vengeance and upheaval. This sentiment strengthened his aura, and in turn, his aura strengthened them. With every battle, his aura grew stronger, and they grew stronger in turn.

Three months quickly passed by in a flash, and in that time, the Blood God Region underwent a subtle transformation. The mortal cities were mostly unaffected, but the sects thrummed with a different energy.

The remaining enforcer sects became doubtful and dispirited, while the rebellious sects, the ones that Cha Ming hadn’t rescued, became increasingly resistant to the Blood God Sect’s rule. And to ensure the stability of the region, the Blood God Sect was forced to tolerate their rebellious attitude.

To better control these rebellious seeds, the Blood God Sect was forced to pull even more forces from their offensive in the Azure Tempest Region, thereby accomplishing Cha Ming’s original goal.

But Cha Ming didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He now had an army of sect masters and elders that would not stop until they achieved their vengeance. Yet it was not yet time to obtain their revenge. There was a huge difference between Tier 3 sects and Tier 2 sects and attacking a Tier 2 sect would not end well.

So Cha Ming waited and collected strength. He gathered members of the scattered sects that had not survived the Blood God Sect’s purge. Time was on his side, and the longer he stayed in the region, the longer the Azure Tempest Region would have to fortify their position and take advantage of the sudden influx of Painted Daoists.

***

Deep in heart of the Blood God Region was the Tier 2 sect known as the Blood Demon Sect. They were the blade of the Blood God Region, and were second only to the region overlord, the Blood God Sect.

The region they occupied was one of the richest, and as such, it was easy for them to foster powerhouses. A Tier 2 sect required only one early law stitching cultivator, but the Blood Demon Sect had three.

Among the Tier 2 sects, the Blood Demon Sect had a reputation for using strong-armed tactics to monopolize local resources.  A third of all sects reporting to them were blood farms, and another third were enforcement sects.

As such, the sects in the region dared not think of escape, let alone rebellion. When Cha Ming looked into their dead eyes, he saw no hope or expectations of a better future.

There were no rebel sects anywhere within thirty thousand kilometers of the Blood Demon Sect. This was because the Blood Demon Sect was known for raising blood beasts, which could easily sniff out other blood cultivators.

It was for this reason that Cha Ming chose this place to settle down. He and the rebel group cultivated exclusively in the Clear Sky World, which was completely isolated from the Chasewind Plane.

After three months of constant fighting and attacking and thieving, they had eliminated over sixty Tier 3 sects and several hundred Tier 4 sects and saved just as many. But these survivors were wounded and exhausted from all the fighting. For now, they were too weak to accomplish anything.

As for the blood pools, Cha Ming managed to harvest half of the ones they found and destroyed the rest. Every Tier 2 sect regularly collected blood offerings from these pools to supplement their own, so the disappearance of these pools affected their ability to gather cultivation resources.

By now, they had attracted too much attention. Cha Ming decided to settle down for a few months at least, if not half a year. He wasn’t concerned about the Azure Tempest Region, because Huxian could keep them supplied in his absence. Moreover, he had a feeling that his actions in the Blood God Region had not gone unnoticed. It was unlikely that any of the Tier 2 or lower sects would cause any problems for the Clear Sky Conglomerate.

Cha Ming was currently hidden away in a cave that he had dug deep into a mountain mine. It was one of many mountains in the Blood Demon Mountain Range, and this mountain had already been excavated. Since location didn’t matter for Cha Ming and the rebels, they hid away behind layers of concealment formations, and relied on transcendent crystals to supplement their energy instead of their environment.

Before Cha Ming was an enormous blood pool. It contained the combined blood essence of all tier 3 and tier 4 sects he’d taken, as well as the blood of sinful cultivators he’d harvested while taking over these sects. The blood pool smelled of filth and poison, but it was also filled with flecks of gold that symbolized obligation.

Surrounding the blood pool were 36 other cultivators. They were weak, having barely broken through to the rune gathering realm, but bore a powerful aura of righteousness. Each of them held one wrist over the blood pool, allowing a steady flow of golden blood to mix and mingle with it.

The blood pool did not seem pleased by their offerings, and occasionally sent splashes of corrupted blood at these junior cultivators to chase them away. But these cultivators did not seem to mind. They resisted the blood pool’s corruption and continued feeding their own righteous blood into it.

“Are you sure this is going to work, Daoist Blood Light?” Cha Ming asked a middle-aged cultivator, who was seated beside him, tracing patterns in the air. These patterns formed runes of light that flew into the blood pool, adding to the golden color growing within.

“I’m about sixty percent sure,” said the middle-aged man. “You need to understand that I’m working with incomplete scriptures. I barely got through half of my training, which is more than what can be said of these juniors.”

These thirty-seven cultivators were the remnants of the Righteous Blood Sect Cha Ming had discovered. Their scriptures were no more, but their teachings and foundations remained. They were only too happy to embark on a crusade to punish the evil blood cultivation sects and were extremely eager to participate in Cha Ming’s blood purification process.

“The most important part, if my memory serves correctly, is the will of the blood pool,” said Daoist Blood Light. “By using our deeds to purify the blood of sinners and evil cultivators, and our blood as a medium, we rid the blood of its resentment and transform it into Righteous Blood, one of three most powerful bloods that one can cultivate.”

“And what are the other two?” Cha Ming asked.

“Opposite of Righteous Blood is Evil Blood,” explained Daoist Blood Light. “True Blood is somewhere between the two. The Blood God Sect cultivates Evil Blood, while the Righteous Blood Sect cultivates Righteous Blood. As might be expected, the True Blood is cultivated by the cultivators of the True Blood Monastery.

“Now come. Your blood is the key to forming a connection to the blood pool. You must inject a portion of your spiritual energy into the blood, converting it into soul blood, and you must also infuse it with merit using the mantra I imparted to you.”

Cha Ming nodded to the man and walked up to the blood pool. He cut his wrist with the Clear Sky Carving Knife and suppressed his regenerative powers. Ten-colored blood flowed out from his body.

His divine, law, and spiritual energies were partially fused, so injecting a portion of his spiritual energy into the blood was unnecessary. He chanted mantras and summoned his angelic wings. A portion of their white coloring flowed into his ten-colored blood, thereby converting it into a merit treasure, of sorts.

Cha Ming’s blood provoked a fierce reaction form the blood pool. Millions of intermingled wills let out screams of ecstasy as a huge portion of resentment was cleansed. The number of golden flecks in the blood pool increased ten-fold. At the same time, over half the blood in the blood pool evaporated, including a huge portion of the impurities contained within.

“Success!” said Daoist Blood Light. He took out a recording jade and began taking notes. “Remnant ritual circle proof of concept completed. No casualties, this time. Superior product, possibly due to angelic endowment? More research required.”

Cha Ming’s eyes twitched at the mention of ‘no casualties, this time’, but he turned a blind eye to it. As the sole survivors of their sect, they bore a heavy burden. Maybe we’ll find some of their scriptures in one of the Tier 2 sects, he thought. Righteous blood cultivation seems like a very suitable art for me, given how much evil blood I seem to be collecting.

The ritual had not only cleansed the pool, it had also given it a certain spirituality. It showed a willingness to help Cha Ming, whereas before, there was only bitterness and resentment. Maybe I can use the blood as ink? It was an intriguing possibility. Powerful ink was hard to come by, and this preliminary version of Righteous Blood, impure as it was, might be just what he was looking for.

There was much to be done, so Cha Ming excused himself from the excited Righteous Blood Sect cultivators. He left the Blood Pool there for their research, knowing that there was no way to steal it from him now that it had gained spirituality. At most, they could study its composition and prepare to refine their own righteous blood the next time they raided another evil blood sect.

The rebels were currently consolidating their resources in an effort to better strengthen the entire group. By looting so may sects, they had accumulated many different cultivation methods and techniques. And since they were all in the same boat, the sects did not hesitate to exchange their respective techniques with one another, in the hopes of improving the strength of the group.

The energy of the Clear Sky World was a bit lacking to the Chasewind Plane’s, but Cha Ming with transcendent crystals, overcoming this hurdle was easy. And with Cha Ming’s proficiency in runic arts, he had no problem producing a large number of formations to assist them in their cultivation.

Body cultivation was an important part of blood cultivation, and without external sources of blood, it would be difficult for them to improve in the short term. Fortunately, Cha Ming had ample experience in body tempering thanks to his hellish training in the Heartforge Realm. He devised formations to refine their bodies and focus their strength and produced some other minor formations to train one’s qi and domain.

Cha Ming also benefited from the exchange. A few of the sects cultivated by painting runes that sank down through ones skin to refine one’s bones, marrow, and blood. He was able to improve on the method to train his own body and created a simplified version for each of the five elements that each of the sects could use.

Unfortunately, training craftsmen was a lengthy process. Cha Ming neither had the time nor the patience to teach them. He directly created several suitable battle formations and weapons from mountains of raw materials he’d gathered from the sects they’d looted, then put key elders and sect masters in charge of training the younger generation.

From then on, Cha Ming dedicated most of his attention to training. At times, he cultivated. Other times, he painted. He alternated between rest and relaxation, as both were required for steady growth.

Cha Ming’s body had suffered many wounds over the past few months, but after taking the time to purge any impurities and recover his vitality, he discovered that his durability and strength were much improved.

At first, he was confused, but after inspecting his body, everything became clear. Before the fiend outbreak, Cha Ming had barely managed to bring his combat potential back up to full strength after initially fusing his energies. But now, this ten-colored energy had been fully brought under his control. He could now freely use up to thirty percent ten-colored energy for any of his qi techniques and spiritual techniques. His body now contained thirty percent ten-colored energy.

Controlling this energy and being able to utilize it properly were two very different things. Qi techniques, paintings, and even divine abilities required practice and balance. He spent time on each of these topics, modifying his techniques and his paintings as well. He did not create anything new but used his stronger qi to strengthen their framework. In this way, he would be able to better adapt when he further fused his energies.

Fully integrating this strength took time. Relative to the rapid growth of the cultivators in the Clear Sky World, his own progress could only be described as slow and steady. He was barely learning to control his own strength again when the first dozen cultivators managed to break through to the law-stitching realm. In that same time period, many cultivators broke through from the rune carving realm and became proper rune gathering powerhouses.

A half year came and went. In total, nine months had passed since he’d left the Azure Tempest Region. This was no small amount of time inside the Clear Sky World. Nine months in the outside world was nearly equal to eight years.

Huxian kept Cha Ming up to date on all the happenings of the Chasewind Plane. The fox was still fighting with the Paper Tiger Clan, and a certain Dao Lord Blood Leech had thrown himself into the mix. Xing Tianlong and Wei Longshen were currently fighting two different wars. One against the neighboring Light and Glass Alliance, and another against Cao Wenluan’s faction.

Petros had managed to avoid a lot of the fighting, but troops were now building up on his borders. But he did not concern himself with this, as he had no love for sects or clans. He focused on developing the Hunter’s Guild and assigning fiend hunting missions. Many independent cultivators saw their strengths soar, and the sects and clans, not wanting to be left behind, often sent their own members to complete missions and secure resources.

Things were very quiet back in the Azure Tempest Region. No one had interfered with his rollout of core painting talismans, but there had been some friction, specifically in the south where the Soaring Blade had Sect had considerable influence.

Most of that friction had come in the beginning, however, and had all but disappeared when they realized exactly how efficiently Cha Ming was able to infiltrate Tier 3 and Tier 4 sect while evading pursuit from the Blood God Sect. That deterrence still remained six months later, but Cha Ming knew that it was only a matter of time before trouble started cropping up again.

He decided to do something big before leaving the region. Something that would both deter the Blood God Sect from attacking the Azure Tempest Region and shut down any opposition to the Clear Sky Conglomerate once and for all.