After Angelica left, Kana and the rest went into seclusion to begin cultivating. This was a major point in Creige, Rain's, and Yana's cultivation path, so after telling them about her experiences, Kana also began her path to cultivation. Soon the entire house was dead silent.
Since the mountain Kana was on was separated from the sect, and only a few people were allowed to go there, no one would disturb them at this time. Kana had also let Nana know she was going into seclusion as well.
Inside the sect, new winds were blowing. In a certain courtyard, the sect master, Elder Ning, and Lord Yong all gathered inside the back room of the main house. "So everything is behind this bookshelf?"
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Yes, the scroll on the right." The sect master reached over and grabbed the scroll, and pulled on it. As soon as he did, the sounds of stone grinding against stone could be heard, and the whole house began to shake. Slowly, the shelf began to move to the left, revealing an opening behind it with a set of stairs leading down.
"To think Elder Ye was able to make such a place without us knowing." Elder Ning frowned as he took the lead.
"With the arrays we found outside, it is a wonder we could even hear sounds coming from the courtyard. The soundproofing array was for the house only." On the way in, Lord Yong had to disable quite a few arrays to enter the house. Some of which were level four arrays. "But I wonder which array master he called to set them up. As far as I know, the highest level array master we have in the kingdom is only level four, and he is currently living a luxurious life in the palace."
High ranking array masters were very uncommon, the same as high ranking pill refiners. Every kingdom would do their utmost to keep a higher ranking array master or pill refiner to the point that they would sometimes have more prestige than the kings or queens of that land themselves. This was because they can bring prestige to the kingdom as well as boost the kingdom's overall strength. Of course, while they were treated well, these array masters and pill refiners would do their job and produce enough pills to fill a quota or help maintain the arrays in the kingdom. But most were arrogant and did as they pleased. But in a situation like this, where Elder Ye had multiple rank four arrays guarding his home, it was very suspicious.
"The evidence for it all will be found inside. Including many names of the people who are involved." The sect master said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "Everything is behind this door. But you should be warned it is not a pretty sight."
When the sect master got Elder Ye's memories, he learned some disturbing facts. Many girls in the sect had disappeared over time with no trace whatsoever. The sect had marked them as dead because they had all taken out a mission during the time of their disappearance. But it seemed it was all a ruse. Elder Ye had messed with these girls' minds, they would go take out a mission but actually never leave the sect. In the middle of the night, they would sneak over to Elder Ye's courtyard in a daze. After that, they were never seen again.
As the door opened, a strong stench filled the stairwell, causing everyone to frown. "The stench of death…."
"Over five hundred missing outer sect disciples. All female. Four hundred and thirty two of them can be found here. After so many years, he had killed so many and done so many unspeakable acts on top of everything else." The sect master explained.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Sect master these bodies…." Lord Yong was surprised to see that the bodies were actually mummified. They looked to have been completely drained of blood.
"This is because he was selling it. He was getting spirit stones from devil cultivators. He was basically using the blood of virgins which sold at a high price, so he could gain as many spirit stones as possible. This money was being spent on his own cultivation. A single virgin has enough blood in them to fill a bucket. That one bucket is a few thousand high quality spirit stones. Ever since Elder Ye had become an elder, he had been stuck in the core formation realm. But even after consuming so many high quality spirit stones and sacrificing so many young ones, he still couldn't breakthrough.
"This is the problem with cultivation. Some will go to extreme lengths to try to gain power. But this… this is no way to gain power. Let's gather them all up and give them proper burials. All evidence also needs to be gathered. Once we have compiled all the information, we will then strike." The sect master's eyes were cold. He had Elder Ning gather all the evidence while he and Lord Yong took care of the corpses. It was his failure as a sect master that had caused this. He owed it to these girls to personally make sure they had proper graves, and a proper send off.
It took them three days. Three days to gather everything and bury the dead. The graveyard he created was in the forbidden grounds. A place that held meaning to the sect and had a holy ground that would allow those buried there to rest in peace. The sect master spent an entire month sitting in front of the graves in prayer. He did so because of his own guilt in not protecting his disciples. During this time, Lord Yong and Elder Ning were going through all the evidence and preparing a plan to take care of all those who were involved.
No one in the sect knew about what happened in Elder Ye's hidden room. Everything was removed in secret in order to not bring shame to those girls who died under Elder Ye's hands. It was better to be known to die at the jaws of a demonic beast than to be killed and drained of your blood by an elder.