"You're finally here," Tu Xin suddenly said, turning his head back to face the swirling fog of the death zone, completely ignoring the four Dao Realm elders.
Just as his words faded, the clouds behind them violently distorted. A blinding golden light pierced through the heavy overcast, shining forward with the weight of a falling meteor. The sheer velocity of his arrival tore through the wind as if it were made of thin paper. The light spread across several meters of the sky where the four Dao Realm elders and Tu Xin were levitating, sending out a shockwave that violently scattered the surrounding clouds.
A young man stepped forward. He looked no older than twenty, with a short-cropped hairstyle, draped in a loose, golden-threaded monastic robe with thick prayer beads resting around his neck. His skin emitted a faint, metallic bronze hue, resembling the flawless cast of an ancient Buddhist statue. Despite his youthful appearance, the aura he radiated was suffocating.
He was a Great Perfection Dao Realm practitioner, having tempered his body to the peak of the golden body techniques.
He looked down, observing the injured cultivators at the foot of the mountain, and then at the trembling Dao practitioners hovering nearby, before bowing slightly to Tu Xin as he walked on the air toward him.
"Senior Tu Xin, why are you staring so intensely at this barren mountain?" the young monk asked, following Tu Xin's fierce gaze toward the gray fog encompassing the death zone on the backside of the mountain.
Tu Xin simply glanced at him, his expression indifferent. "Didn't you also come to explore?"
"No, you are mistaken," the young monk replied. "I am tracking down a cultivator. Someone slaughtered several scores of cultivators at the ocean water body a few days ago. My squad captain is very interested in this person and wants to personally interrogate him," he added, glancing back at Tu Xin.
"Oh? Why would you outer disciples go to such lengths to track down an unknown cultivator? It is not the first time a slaughter has happened on the outskirts of the wilderness," Tu Xin noted, swiftly sheathing his sword.
"That is because you did not see the state of the bodies we found floating on the ocean. One of them was pinned to a mountain; he had his entire skin, tendons, and organs ripped out, leaving him with just bones and a bit of hanging flesh. The cultivators who witnessed the scene refused to provide any information to us, they were visibly terrified of him," the young monk replied, gently pressing his palms together as if in prayer.
"Oh? What an interesting person. Do you think I would tell you the whereabouts of such a cultivator if I had seen him?" Tu Xin replied coldly, slowly turning and flying right past the young monk.
The four Dao Realm practitioners immediately backed away, retreating several meters as they sensed a dangerous spark of conflict between the two figures.
"Why do these two factions always start a fight?" one of the cultivators at the foot of the mountain whispered, watching Tu Xin completely ignore the young monk.
"You don't know?" another replied.
"Know what?"
"There are three factions established by the Upper Nineteen Factions to govern the wilderness. That monk there is from the largest and most powerful of the three," the cultivator explained, pointing at the young man floating amongst the clouds.
"Around five years ago, a powerful cultivator broke away from that exact faction and formed a city in the middle of the wilderness alongside other very powerful immortal cultivators. It is called the Lunar Region," he continued, as more cultivators began to gather around to hear the narration.
"Originally, none of the three factions paid much attention to this independent force, not until they began accepting wandering cultivators who couldn't join the three main factions, which expanded their growth exponentially. After the decisive battle between the Lunar Region and the leader of that powerful faction, their strength grew even further.
Now, more than forty percent of the business, resources, and land in the wilderness is controlled by the Lunar Region," the cultivator said, pausing happily to see the growing number of listeners leaning in.
"You said a decisive battle happened in the Lunar Region. What actually took place?" one of the cultivators asked eagerly.
"Remember how he said the founder of the Lunar Region was a top figure in the most powerful faction? Eventually, a massive conflict arose between the two sides," a different cultivator chimed in.
"And it was not just because he broke away to form the Lunar Region. It was because he began allying himself with another of the three factions, threatening to aid them in becoming the new overlords," he added.
"And Tu Xin is one of the founding cultivators of the Lunar Region," the first narrator emphasized.
"Him? Isn't he just a Dao Realm practitioner?" one of them asked, all of them looking up into the sky in disbelief.
"If you had ever seen his sword in action, you would know his combat power has long reached that of an immortal," the cultivator answered, awe written all over his face as he watched Tu Xin levitating above.
"The leader of the most powerful faction stepped out of seclusion to personally destroy the entire Lunar Region using his faction's full force and resources. Neither of the other two factions dared to interfere, and even the Lunar Region's allies cowered and backed out.
It was supposed to be a flawless surprise attack, considering the faction leader had finally reached the perfection stage of the Immortal pathway," he continued, bringing his gaze down to the sword in his own hand."
But who would have thought the founder of the Lunar Region would step into the pathway of the Sovereign Immortal just in the nick of time? Witnesses say just the echo of his voice severely injured the faction leader, rendering him half-dead.
The faction leader and his entire faction would have perished that day if not for the fact that the Upper Nineteen Factions were the direct backers of the three main factions," he said, sighing deeply as everyone nodded in agreement.
"Now, the Lunar Region is the undisputed king of the wilderness, and the lives of wandering cultivators are no longer casually thrown away by those monsters from the three factions," he added.
"The Demon Realm is indeed a place governed by the rule of survival of the fittest, but that doesn't mean the strong should casually waste lives. The Lunar Region truly deserves the reputation they have," one of the cultivators yelled out, prompting mutters of agreement from the crowd.
"So, between those two up there," one of them said to the storyteller, pointing at Tu Xin and the young monk, "who do you think would win in a fight? They are both in the Great Perfection stage of the Dao Realm."
"Hmph," the cultivator scoffed. "You clearly haven't heard the legendary tales of that sword in Tu Xin's hands. There is a reason why he is one of the founding cultivators of the largest stronghold in the wilderness."
"You lot truly have a death wish," the young monk's voice suddenly echoed angrily from the sky.
In the next second, a massive golden Buddhist palm came cascading down toward the gossiping cultivators at the foot of the mountain. It was large enough to envelop and crush them all in a single strike.
"We've kicked the hornet's nest," one of them rasped as the echo washed over them. None of them could move or even attempt to flee. The sheer area, speed, and width of the descending palm was simply too massive for them to outrun in a matter of seconds.