Awakening the Divine Spark

The first ones to notice the intruders were the Nethermoon sect’s Hall of Justice’s enforcers.

When the first masked person was spotted in the inner sect, the alarm was immediately raised. Unfortunately no one expected the intrusion to be of such scale that it basically became an invasion.

The Nethermoon sect didn’t have walls. It encompassed too large territories for it to be practical.

But there was something better than a wall. The sect was subsidiary of the Celestial Abyss sect – the hegemon of this world. Basically this fact should’ve guaranteed that no sane person would ever dare to trespass it’s borders, but as it turned out, there were some daring people out there. And a lot.

When the fighting began all over the sect, Elder Wang, along with the elder of the Hall of Justice Luo Yanlong, appeared above the central square of the inner sect and watched the events in confusion mixed with anger.

Batches of tens of people seemingly appeared from nowhere, but when the alarm was raised, rifts began to open in several places one after another. They weren’t opened at the same time, though.

No, it was clear that only one rift gate was used, but the one who operated it clearly knew the layout of the sect and the best places to let the enemy charge in. And that included the outer sect.

The general rule of strong going against the strong and weak against the weak was mostly followed, indicating this was an organized attack from another sect. That, in turn, made it impossible to ask Celestial Abyss’s assistance.

The leader of the Celestial Abyss, Mo Tianyin loved when his subsidiaries experienced difficulties. He considered events like this to be the stepping stones on the path of growing stronger, and actually welcomed them.

"What do we do?" Elder Luo asked.

He was an expert in a direct fight if he had one strong opponent. He was also a great leader for the Hall of Justice. But he wasn’t really a general to lead an army.

Elder Wang was biting his lower lip, while at the same time cracking his knuckles.

"So be it!" In the end he said, "They came to our home, so let’s bury their remains here!"

"That’s a harsh reaction, don’t you think?"

Out of nowhere fourteen people appeared around them. They all wore black hooded cloaks and wore masks, but Elder Wang nor Elder Luo needed to recognize them to know that they were strong opponents.

The person who spoke, a man, didn’t stand out much. Among them there were few taller and shorter people, with few obviously being women, and for a split moment Elder Wang hesitated whether he should attack right away.

"Let’s watch the show, shall we?" The same man spoke. He wasn’t hiding the amusement in his voice. He said, "Old people like us should be able to show some leniency toward the younger generation, right, Elder Wang?"

"Like hell!" Elder Wang hissed, and the next moment he and Elder Luo appeared on the ground, in the middle of the central square.

"Shit!" The earlier speaker cursed, and then shouted, "Get us down!"

One after another, the intruders appeared below on the square, surrounding the two elders. From the nearby buildings, though, several junior elders rushed out to help.

"Go help our disciples!" Elder Wang shouted, "We’ll deal with these bastards!"

Elder Luo already had his sword in hand. He pointed at one of the intruders, and before anyone else moved, the person lifelessly fell to the ground.

"Activate it!" One of the females among the attackers commanded, and Elder Wang’s expression turned unsightly.

"Your decisiveness surprised me!" The initial speaker said.

He now held a watermelon-sized object in hands that was giving off slight ripples. From the hateful look Elder Wang threw his way, he knew that the old man guessed what the thing in his hands was. Unfortunately, they activated it too late and because of that one person died.

"The Azuremist sect had their rift gate sabotaged." Elder Wang said to Elder Luo.

They were old friends and worked great together. Earlier Elder Wang opened a miniature rift, just large enough for Elder Lou to stab through. The latter didn’t know where the exit was until one of the intruders died, but unfortunately that was all the initiative they got.

"And the Moonshadow sect as well." The first speaker said in a jeering voice, "I truly admire you, Elder Wang. Even before you landed on the ground, you managed to get to the Azuremist sect and back. We never knew you had such skill ... it’s probably taxing, isn’t it?

"Which one first?" Elder Luo ignored the provocation, and asked.

"We’ll have to do it the basic way." Elder Wang said, and glanced at the item that kept sending ripples in all directions, "They also can’t go all out ... let’s kill the weak ones first ... one has to be Leng Yushu. It’ll be nice if we capture alive, but killing is also good."

"Amazing! What a gentleman!" The man laughed, but got immediately annoyed by one of his comrades snorting under the hood. It was obvious Elder Wang was fishing, but the idiot gave her away.

But it didn’t matter. The two elders were severely outnumbered, therefore the man said, "Earlier you caught us unprepared, but no one will die from now on. Even if you know that your own people are behind our little expedition, there’s nothing you can do about it."

"So there’s at least two of them." Elder Luo immediately picked up the important part while the previous speaker could only stare swords at him.

The guy was trying to pretend to strike up a casual conversation while at the same time making fun of the elders, but the old foxes played him like a toddler. And they didn’t stop.

"Then it’s Yin Wuqing." Elder Wang said, "The bitch has been sucking his dick for the past decades ..."

"You bastard!" Without a second thought, one of the intruders charged at the elder, but lost his head half way, not managing to react to the leader’s command – stand your ground!

Even without the ability to use elemental energy, Elder Luo was a monster, especially if it was about his sword’s speed in one on one fight.

"Wuqing!" One of the shorter attackers, a female, rushed to the headless corpse, but this time three others assisted her, forcing both elders to take a step back.

No one expected them to decisively kill one of their own elders, the Elder of the Provision Hall, Yin Wuqing. And they easily provoked the other one, the Elder of the Mission Hall Leng Yushu, to reveal herself.

Actually they had no clue there were some deep feelings between the two elders, and this turned out to be a nice coincidence. A nice coincidence apart from them being traitors and the Netheremoon sect being under attack, of course.

"Alright, it’s enough!" Another person spoke.

It was hard to tell whether it was a man or a woman. Their voice was clearly altered and both, Elder Wang and Elder Luo, marked the person to be the next target. Unfortunately they didn’t get the chance.

The attackers didn’t move, thus not showing any opening, and if they attacked first, without being able to use any elemental skills, they would die for sure.

"How long will that thing last?" Elder Wang asked, "Fifty more breaths, hundred?"

"We’re going all out." The first speaker said in a seemingly honest tone, "We used twenty seven behemot level sparks so ... a while."

"Is there a single behemot left in our world, much less twenty seven?!" Elder Wang tried to go back to fishing, and with relative success.

"Here and there." The man said with a shrug, "A couple came from your treasury."

"So LunLun was involved ..." Elder Wang said. He had hard time to hide the sadness in his voice, even though any information they got was precious.

"Obviously! Who do you think was opening the rifts earlier?" Elder Luo snorted, "But thank you for sharing. Now we know that Su Zixuan is involved as well. After the reconstruction only she could instruct LunLun on how to get in the vault. You’re such a nice guy ..."

"Indeed, he’s really nice." Elder Wang said, "You’re very talkative, your companions must really like you ..."

"Shut up!" The person with the altered voice commanded, "From now on no one talks!"

Unfortunately, the person seemed to be the leader of the attackers and everyone followed her order. From that moment on no one let out a sound, no matter how hard Elder Wang and Elder Luo tried or what mind games they played.

***

The standoff continued for a long while and was about to end when Shen Rouya along with few other junior elders from the Hall of Justice arrived. They blatantly refused Elder Wang’s order to go help others, but before actual fight broke out, a red signal flare shot to the sky from the direction of the Healing Hall.