Greenwood City


    “We’re finally back!” Yssa muttered as soon as she and her husband exited the airport


    It has been months since their second ‘honeymoon’. They visited quite a number of ces and enjoyed themselves


    However, there is still nothing like home. Greenwood City as their birth city is the most familiar ce for them


    Not to mention, their one and only son were also living here. Since they hadn’t seen him in person for months, they naturally misses him


    “Honey, at least half of my clothes were left behind to amodate Rezen’s presents. How are you going topensate me?” Heinley said with invisible tears


    They went a bit overboard buying presents for their son and as a result, Heinley was forced to leave some of his clothes behind


    “Why are you talking as if it was my fault? I’m not the one that designed these airlines to limit the weight of the passengers’ belongings!” Yssa retorted without the slightest bit of guilt


    Of the two, it was only Heinley that left some clothes behind. Not even a single underwear of Yssa was missing unlike her husband


    In terms of shamelessness, Rezen might have inherited his from his parents


    “Tsk, tsk, just you wait, I’ll hide your dresses in ces where you wouldn’t be able to see them!”


    “If you dare do that, you’ll be sleeping on the couch for weeks!”


    “Mean!”


    The twoughed at each other for their silliness as they hailed a taxi and sat inside


    “Rezen would be surprised right? He doesn’t know that we are already back” Yssa said with a grin


    “Hehehe, I’ll call and ask him toe inside the city. After dropping off our suitcases, we should eat with him in a restaurant!” Heinley suggested and his wife didn’t stop him


    ——-


    Greenwood City


    Slums


    Inside the Twighlight Beast’s branch in Greenwood City, more than a dozen mages could be seen


    They are inside a meeting room while filled with both fear and excitement


    Sitting at the very front of the long rectangr table were two people wearing fox masks


    They are the two Imperial Lords of this branch’s Twighlight Beast. In the secr world, they are at the very top. Hence, the reason for their title


    Now that an Elder of the organization is not present again, these two regained their arrogance though they are filled with dread inside


    Failure is not an option. If they fail, they might suffer a fate worst than death


    . In front of these two mages was a small ck snake resting calmly on top of the table


    The eyes of this snake seems to hold high intelligence as runes constantly flickered all over its body though the most attention-catching was the imprint on its forehead


    “How many of our members are given the ‘mark’?” Space Fox questioned the Noble Lords with her in the meeting room


    One of the Noble Lords wearing an eagle mask replied. “All of the titled members (4th fusion rank and above) are already given the ‘mark’ but there’s still some below them that haven’t received it yet”


    “It can’t be helped then, they would be sacrificed. From my investigation, the Preston Family is cooperating with the Military. They are already gathering their forces to raid us. We have tomence the n!”


    The existence of the Truth-seeking Rod created arge problem for their n causing the n to be forcefully altered


    Although they have stolen the special treasure, during the time that the military still has the Truth-seeking Rod, they cleaned their members


    The y Dolls are either discovered or called back. Once the y Dolls are discovered, they would be killed and that would be a loss


    The y Dolls have the power of the person they are impersonating. They could even use magic and mystic gems!


    They are also a considerable manpower and the Twighlight Beast called them back rather than letting them die


    Due to the ‘cleansing’, they were forced to enact a new n


    It has been a long time since their location was known by the enemy but the military focuses on the ‘cleaning’ part


    But now that they lost the only item that would help with their cleaning, they could only start the raid even if there were still spies among them


    With the help of the Preston Family, if nothing goes wrong, the Twighlight Beast in Greenwood City will be eradicated


    As such, they could only move forward and catch the enemy off guard!


    “We would soon start!” Space Fox announced as she activated the imprint on the ck snake on top of the table


    ——


    Ownerless Blessed Land


    A pce that looks like the Pce of the Celestials calmly and elegantly floated  in the air


    It gave off a bright and beautiful ethereal glow. The mechanism of how such arge pce that isrger than a vige is floating is a mystery


    The Pce was situated on arge piece ofnd. The pce was painted with white and gold color, looking untainted


    The light emitted seems to have the power to purify all the curses in this world


    Connected to thend of the Pce was a golden staircase. Each step floating steadily in the air as if no wind could sway them


    The staircase was thergest staircase a person could ever see


    It started down the ground to the Celestial Pce floating high in the sky


    If the Pce is akin to the dwellings of Gods and Angels, thend mass below on the other hand was theplete opposite


    Thend was dark and eerie, seemingly devoid of any hint of life. It was a barren darknd where not even a single de of grass grew


    The long staircase connects both the Pce and the darknd below it


    “Huff… huff… huff…”


    In the middle of the staircase, a single silhouette can be seen. His face was pale, his lips and entire body trembling


    His clothes were tattered to the extreme as if some sort of power had shredded them. What remains of his clothes were tightly clinging to his bare skin due to the excessive amount of sweat that his body secretes


    This man is extremely familiar to Rezen. This was a man that he wanted to help and rescue but he doesn’t have the ability to do so


    This is the Dark Saint, the mage that is said to have the talent to be a 7th rank mage even though the other talented mages of his era have close to no chance of breaking through that rank


    This man is none other than ude Preston!


    Compared to his usual tidy appearance, he looks like he just went through hell


    An Ownerless Blessed Land… these ces are either a treasure trove or a ce with certain death


    Mages at the 6th fusion rank and below if lucky can plunder the resources inside such blessednd. If they were unlucky, they would be buried inside forever


    ude always has the reputation of turning misfortune into a fortuitous encounter and this time might not be any different


    ude raised his head at the sky, he can feel that once he reaches the floating Pce, not only would he not rot and die inside this Blessed Land, he would even receive great benefits


    However, reaching that pce is not as easy as it seems


    ude raised his foot to climb another step and he instantly groaned


    For whatever reason, there would be a pressure bearing down on a person’s soul that would appear as soon as they stepped on this staircase


    The higher ude climbs the staircase, the stronger the pressure was


    Right now, he could already feel that his soul was on the verge of copsing. But to survive and return to the outside world, ude can only grit his teeth and continue without dy


    He climbed one step after another despite the increasing pressure on his soul. His soul is constantly being ced on the verge of copse but at the same time, the pressure is also refining his soul


    It was akin to steel that was hammered over and over again to remove the impurities


    No matter how pressured ude’s soul was to the point that even his entire elixir field was shaking and cracking, he still persevered


    In the end, his hard work paid off. As soon as his feetnded on the floatingnd, a bright light glowed on his body


    All the injuries and fatigue that his soul and elixir field sustained from the spiritual pressure healed at an astonishing pace


    ude can even sense that the barrier separating him from the next rank was loosening


    ude’s talent whether it be in absorption orprehension was frightening. It was to the point that he already met the requirements to advance to the next rank but he cannot do so because of the limitation of his mortal body


    Mages start cultivation at 18 years old. ude is still in his early to mid-twenties, it might just be a bit more than 5 years since he cultivated