Tongues of flames spat out from all directions of the former, prospering Heigui Enclave. Trees were laid down on their sides while heaps of rock flew everywhere like volcanic rocks after a deadly eruption. The gorgeous green and blue of the enclave had been replaced with the crimson colour of the fiery pits of hell. Nothing could escape the wrath of the devil, not even the poor Xuanwus that had been synonymous with the legendary Heigui Clan.

There were about fifty beached Xuanwus and that single strike from the Black Masks had wiped out three-fifths of their population. Charred with broken shells and damaged flesh which revealed their bones, the deceased Xuanwus seemed to have gone through decades of torture before passing away, even though their deaths were quick. The lucky ones, or depending on how one looked at it, unlucky ones that were able to escape that onslaught, weren’t in perfect shape either.

The majority of them were sprawled out on their backs with bits of flesh dripping out from their limbs. Some of them had no limbs to speak of. Fires continued to burn over all of their hardened skins, forcing many of them to escape down into the ocean and heal all on their own. The safe haven that the Heigui Clan had promised them was already compromised. There was no way that the Xuanwus would stick around to defend the place that caused them this much death and injury. Which meant one thing…

The elites of the Lantis Republic were left all… alone.

“Cough, cough!” A middle-aged looking woman pushed herself out of the debris, stretching out her strained shoulders. Jingyu Shenxian was sore all over, her face covered with ashen soot and her eyes watering up with tears. Even as a Spirit Venerate, a surprise attack like that was completely out of the Chancellor’s ballpark. Shellshocked, Jingyu Shenxian needed a good full minute to comprehend what had happened.

Raising her arms above her shoulders, the Chancellor reached for the light in the broken debris, slowly clawing her way out into freedom. And it didn’t take long for her to find what she sought out. Standing atop the pile of rock that was formerly known as Turtle Hall, the Lantis Republic’s top executive gasped in horror at the sight before her.

“N-No… No way...” Jingyu Shenxian gulped. An intense heat permeated through her veins, warming up the already scorched skin of hers. All around her, the crimson flames left behind by the solar beam flickered without any mercy, burning any and all that came into their paths. Buildings that had been standing for thousands of years were falling apart, while structures that could classify as heritage sites were burning like an eternal campfire.

In her long years as Chancellor… No, in her long years as a Lantis Republic servant, Jingyu Shenxian had never seen such a devasting scene close to home. Particularly in the heartlands the Eight Clans. The Lantis Republic was renowned for keeping battles far away from its majestic islands and had always established an isolationist policy. It was rare for one of their ships to fall, let alone a full island that was widely regarded as the base of the Heigui Clan.

So… How did it fall, and so quickly to add? Jingyu Shenxian didn’t have to look far to find her answer.

An elderly man levitated about fifty metres above the ground, overseeing the death and destruction that had befallen the land. His arms were tied behind his back, and his wrinkled face was in a dead frown. He wasn’t pleased with the result, and neither was he angry about it. Just an air of desolation.

However, that nonchalance ticked the Chancellor off the wrong way. She was no idiot. There was only one way that an attack could land on the Heigui Enclave, especially since it was protected by all of its Xuanwu population. And that was...

“Saint Heigui… Why?” The Chancellor mustered up all of her remaining strength to ask that simple question. She didn’t have to go into detail, and neither did she need the man to admit his guilt. All Jingyu Shenxian asked was… why?

“...” The elderly man floated silently, seemingly ignoring the woman’s plea. He was looking at the destruction caused by the Black Masks, not knowing what emotions he should put on. There was anguish in his heart, but he couldn’t show it. Anger was boiling up, like the heat that surrounded him, but he couldn’t show it. And most prominently… There was a sadness, one that made the coldness abyss of the oceans kneel in inferiority… but Saint Heigui couldn’t show it.

Why? Because he was the one that enabled the attack on his homeland.

“Little Shenxian… Do you know what the most common behaviour known to mankind is?” Saint Heigui shot the Chancellor a question, his voice going as low as can be.

“Y-You… HOW CAN YOU FOOL AROUND EVEN AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!” Jingyu Shenxian hollered out, emptying all the air in her lungs. “YOU BETRAYED YOUR CLAN! YOUR FAMILY! YOU LET THE BLACK MASKS DESTROY WHAT YOUR ANCESTORS HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO BUILD!!! HOW CAN YOU ACT LIKE NOTHING'S WRONG?!”

Spit after spit flew out of the Chancellor’s mouth, but it got nowhere near the levitating old man. As if expecting that the woman would go on an impassioned rant, Saint Heigui waited… He waited for the woman to calm down, all while smoke billowed all around him. And then, the Spirit Saint continued his speech.

“Little Shenxian… Why do we yearn for eternity? Why do we want to protect our bloodlines and family? Why do we all strive to improve ourselves, even though we have everything the world has to offer?” Saint Heigui wondered out loud. He didn’t care if Jingyu Shenxian was listening in or not. The elderly man was speaking out to justify his actions, or at the very least… to convince himself that it was the right choice.

“Little Shenxian… Do you know why?”

“... I fucking don’t care,” the Chancellor spat.

“It's because the most common behaviour of all humans… is selfishness.” Saint Heigui finally turned his attention to Jingyu Shenxian, who was already beaten and blue. The moment a Spirit Saint’s pressure mounted upon her battered body, the Chancellor felt a chilling cold climb up her spine. She was far too weak to contest against Saint Heigui Zhengkang, one of the four most powerful entities within the Lantis Republic. All she could do was shut her trap and listen to the elderly man sound off.

“Everything thing that we do… is for the betterment of ourselves. Does a mother really care for her kids? No, that’s just the hard-wiring into our genes to make the younger generation prosper so that our seed can carry on evolving in the next generation. Would soldiers be really willing to give their all to their country? No, they only fight to the death because they know that their families are at home waiting for the country’s victory.” Saint Heigui sighed.

“Selflessness is an illusion created by selfish people. Our ancestors did so, and our descendants for generations to come will do the same. We will all choose to do things for our self-betterment. And my choice today carries the same principle.”

“You chose to betray your nation… The country that you have served for almost four centuries… For your own selfish desires?”

“That’s right, Little Shenxian...” The elderly man chuckled. “All living things will eventually fall into dust. Only a handful of humans had ever breached that barrier of immortality, twenty-one to be exact… HAHA!!! HOW LUDICROUS!!! In all the years of humanity, only twenty-one Spirit Immortals are born! What a statistic!!!”

Saint Heigui held the temple of his forehead up, unable to wrap his head around that unfathomable number. “It’s that hard to ascend… It’s that hard to ascend… I have long reached my bottleneck, and I will remain at this level from this day to the day that I return to the ocean. Me? A Spirit Saint that stands at the apex of the world?”

The Spirit Saint stared right into Jingyu Shenxian’s eyes, his desires piercing through her very soul. The decision to betray his clan wasn’t made overnight. Saint Heigui had been agonising over this decision for many moons and had tipped his decision multiple times now. However, at this very moment, there was only one desire in the Spirit Saint’s mind. One that was conveyed articulately to the Lantis Republic’s Chancellor.

“I just… want to live.”