Ascension of the Immortal Asura

1121 The Yang-Sovereign's Plans Pt. 2

Seraphia's words struck every single person like the most heavenly of battle arts, stunning them to their core. No one was able to utter a single word, as their thoughts, their very souls, still tried to comprehend the sheer madness of this situation. Even John could only stand there with wide eyes, doing his best to process this horrifying situation.

"I see," the Grandmaster's voice sounded out again, filling the deafening silence. "Then before you kill me, answer me this one last question."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you just yet," Seraphia scoffed with amusement. "No, there's still much you will tell me regarding your Shadows of Death Guild. Only once I'm confident that your guild poses no threat to my husband in the future shall I grant you the release of death...But, I shall answer one last question, as a gesture of good will towards all the good your guild has done for this world."

"The string...of assassinations," the Grandmaster said hoarsely. "The Sect Leaders that have been assassinated over the last year or two... was that your doing?"

"Oh, those," Seraphia replied, her tone as if those events were a distant memory only now remembered. "Yes, those were of our doing as well."

"Why?" the Grandmaster asked. "Why kill uninvolved Sect Leaders? Some of those were loyal to your sect! Why kill them?" "To cause a distraction," Seraphia replied as if those assassinations meant nothing to her. "To be more specific, they were meant to distract your guild specifically. In order to set everything into motion, we needed to make several plays, many large enough to be caught by your sniveling guild, should you be allowed to sniff around like normal. To deal with that, we decided to kill dozens of powerful Sect Leaders and act as if the Devil's had done it, all so that your guild would spend countless resources on a false trail, allowing us to move on our plan unnoticed. If we had only killed those belonging to the other sects, it would have been suspicious, so unfortunately some of our loyal sub-sects needed to be sacrificed for the greater good. We fed some baseless reasons to those assassinate in case of prying ears to add further confusion..."

"And yet," Seraphia continued after a short pause. "You and your guild still somehow managed to discover this place of ours. Tell me, how did this come to pass? How did your guild manage to find this place? This place, as well as several others, is where we've raised countless of our spies, spies who keep tabs on the other Dao Sects, as well as do our bidding. My husband and I have made certain of this place's secrecy, so I truly have no idea how you managed to find it."

"So that's what all this is," Grandmaster Darkcloud said softly, finally putting all the pieces together.

"Now answer me this question," Seraphia said with a commanding tone. "How much of our plan has your guild discovered?"

Only silence answered her, the Grandmaster not giving up a single ounce of information. "Tch, expected of your guild," Seraphia sneered. "No matter, if your guild had found any evidence at all of our plans, that Prime Shadow of yours would have already taken action. His lack of action tells me everything I need to know."

Footsteps filled the audio next, growing softer as if Seraphia was walking away from the Grandmaster.

"Now, I have to attend the grand finals, but once the tournament is over, rest assured I will return here to finish our conversations," she said.

Then silence. A deafening silence unlike any before filled the arena as the sound transmission recording cut off. Ten million souls churned with chaos, confusion, and disbelief so thick they were unable to make a single sound.

Then, within the silence, a single voice erupted, filled with so much rage and fury that it snapped everyone out of their daze.

"You fucking bitch!" Zuri roared from her seat in the stands dozens of miles away, her aura exploding with furious hatred, her gaze locked onto both Seraphia and Azurae, who stood on the platform with a stunned expression, clearly not expecting what had just happened. "You murdered my father! My brother! My sister! I'll fucking kill you both!"

Boom!

The stadium around her exploded as she pressed off the ground, soaring into the sky towards the floating platform. Dark shadowy tendrils blasted off her as she prepared to attack Azurae and Seraphia.

Suddenly, a wave of dark energy appeared in the air around her, enveloping her in a cocoon of darkness. She slashed out towards the cocoon to destroy it, but was unable to make it budge an inch.

"Let me out! I'll kill them!" she roared to the Prime Shadow, who had used his power to subdue her. With Zuri's Middle World Expansion cultivation, she was no match for Azurae, let alone Seraphia.

As Zuri raged against the cocoon of darkness, her actions snapped everyone back to reality. Soon, voices started to cry out, at first dozens, then thousands, then millions, as every person in the stadium began to roar with questions, rage, hopelessness, and everything in between.

The roars became so loud that they shook the Yang-Dao Sphere violently, as if a million beasts were trampling over it.

"Is this true?"

"Have you betrayed us?"

"Yang-Sovereign. Surely this is all false? Tell everyone these accusations are not tme!"

"Kill him! Kill him before he activates his plan!"

Even the Sword-Saint and Mage Sovereign couldn't help but look at the Yang-Sovereign with disbelief, wanting to ask him if the recording was a lie. It had to be!

"Silence!" a booming roar from the Yang-Sovereign blasted out, so loud that it knocked many of the weaker cultivator's unconscious, as if he no longer cared for pretense or cordiality at all. The stadium fell silent once more, a heavy sense of anxious dread lingering in the air.

"Do you deny what everyone just heard?" the Prime Shadow asked, his voice cold and angry.

"Of course we deny it!" Seraphia hastily exclaimed. "That recording is nothing but a fabrication. A lie meant to tric-"

"It's enough" the Yang-Sovereign said to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. A deep sigh escaped his lips as he looked back at the Prime Shadow, his face so calm that even the Prime Shadow couldnt help but feel unnerved. While the Prime Shadow was powerful, so was the Yang-Sovereign. Now that his assassination attempt had failed, killing the Yang-Sovereign was far, far more difficult.

At the very least, a battle to subdue him would destroy everything and everyone, a price no one was willing to pay. John, amongst many others, realized this exact thing in this very moment.

'Now that everything had been revealed, with the assassination attempt failing, it might no longer be possible to stop the Yang- Sovereign, at least not without the battle killing every single person here,' John thought, a cold dread washing over him.

As it was, the battle may have already been lost.