No Repeats

Bai Ye is captured?

"I, Yue Xiulan, hereby swear, to our ancestors and all demonic sect leaders gathered in front of Zhua Zhu's ancestorial hall today, that when I rule Wulin, I will ensure everyone who had partaken and risked their lives in this rebellion against the tyrannical 'righteous' sects will be rewarded handsomely. I will remember every one of you here today, I have my people are taking records of your contributions in this battle to ensure that when I am Wulin's supreme leader, you all be rewarded according to your contributions. If I go back on my word, may lightning struck me dead and disintegrate my bone and flesh into ashes without a burial place. May the master of hell be my witness!" shouted the beautifully terrifying figure in red to a crowd of people below her.

Yue Xiulan scanned the groups of people gathered on the steps below the ancestorial hall as they roared and stomped their weapons onto the ground making a terrifying but also inspiring rhythmic sound. Her beautiful face lit up in a satisfied smile as she waved her arms to encourage the crowd to shout louder and drumming up a more vibrant atmosphere.

Below the ancestorial hall, there are six demonic sects gathered, each standing with their own groups and wearing their sect's distinctive coloured and patterned clothes as well as matching hairstyles. They are a terrifying crowd, true to their reputation as the demonic sects, they wear a look of pure brutality and cruelty.

Yue Xiulan smiled seductively at the leader of the Duzhi sect with two colourful belts wrapped around his waist. The Duzhi sect is the second most powerful demonic sects, second to Zhua Zhu. They enjoy wearing trophies from their recent kills and conquests. The most common accessory in the sect and a mark of their level of power, is a belt of bones. When a member of the Duzhi kills, they will cut off the victim's thumb and dissolve the skin and flesh in an acidic liquid until only the bone is left. Then the bone would be painted a bright colour and then sewn onto the belt. The more bones on a Duzhi person's waist, the more people have died in that person's hands.

To Yue Xiulan, the leader of the Duzhi sect is an arrogant and stupid man, showing off his prowess and strength by those belts. At one glance, she could tell that there were hundreds of bones on that belt, but so what, she knew that she could kill him within twenty moves.

If he wasn't stupid, how could he allow his sect to get dragged into this? He should have not interfered with the Zuyi sect's disciplinary actions and watched from the sidelines as Zhua Zhu and Zuyi fight before swooping in and kill both sides. Even though she could defeat the Duzhi leader easily, his sect is another story. Because of Duzhi's support the other smaller sects have joined into a battle and risking their lives for a cause that had nothing to do with them.

She sighed, having been alive for so long, she has yet to meet her match in any of the demonic sects. Not to mention his incompetence and stupidity, the man had the unfortunate face and frame of a bull. Yue Xiulan is a lover of beauty and when faced with men without beauty, her body consciously shiver and her gut cringe in disgust. But to ensure that her mission is supported by the Duzhi, she had to spend much effort to seduce and influence the dumb man.

Looking around, she also made eye contact with each of the other sect leaders and especially the leader of the women only sect. As the name suggests, that sect only accepts women as disciples, their servants and slaves are also women. In that sect, it was rumoured that even the animals are female and that male animals born are immediately slaughtered. It was well known that the sect leader Jin Delan had extreme enmity with men so when she created the sect one hundred years ago, she banned all reminders of men in her sect.

Yue Xiulan eyed the handsomely dressed sect leader, Jin Delan surrounded by beautiful and alluring female disciples and smirked internally. She knew better than to believe the official story, Jin Delan did not have an enmity with men. No, she just wanted all the women to herself, the darn woman was so possessive and selfish that she created a sect that doubles up as her private harem. At this Yue Xiulan laughed.

Humans are all the same, at the core of it, people are all chasing the same thing, wealth, power and pleasure, the only difference between the demonic sects and the righteous sects is that the demonic sect is willing to admit their vices and freely pursue it. The righteous sects try to suppress their desires and hide behind a righteous mask, but both have the same ugly and dark hearts and neither deserving.

Yue Xiulan has to break this the vicious cycle that is allowing the 'righteous sects' to demonise her people's choices to live out humanity's true desires without imposing artificial limitations. The righteous sects have used this platform for over a thousand years to ostracise these minority sects and reinforcing their beliefs through indoctrinating children and the weak, but now it is time for all of that to change.

Once she rules Wulin, everyone will have to respect each other's beliefs and life views and the righteous sects would need to recalibrate their moral compass. She will create a libertine world, where all those who has power will raise above, regardless of their name and position. Only those who are weak will deserve to be overpowered, retrained as servants to meet the wishes of the leaders. The pursuit of power and pleasure would be encouraged and celebrated in her new world order.

Yue Xiulan continued to scan the crowd, seriously taking in the varied costumes and distinctive looks of each sects. No two sects are the same, which meant that over a thousand years, the demonic sects not only fought with the righteous sects, but they also fought among themselves. It is time that they unite under one leader to fight the bigger enemy if they have any hope to take over Wulin.

"Do you agree to fight under the banner of the Zhua Zhu, to punish and triumph over the Zuyi and their weak alliances?" she continued to shout.

The crowd simultaneously raised a loud roar of assent following her words, looking up in admiration at the beautiful sect leader. Yue Xiulan let out a resounding laugh and signalled for the crowd to quiet down.

"Guards, bring them," she shouted as she flew towards her throne and sat down in a domineering posture.

Following her words, the sect's strongest guards brought forward two young and handsome men into a kneeling position. The two young men, one tall and the other short had particularly beautiful features that immediately captivated quite a few sect leaders. They had in their mind to ask for these men to serve them afterwards.

The men were tied by a metal chain around their body and hands, even though the chain is quite thin, the knowledgeable people in the crowd gasped. Isn't it the precious black metal chain? The black metal is said to be the antithesis of magic, it has the power to block and neutralise all magical powers that it touches. The deadliest thing about the metal is that it does it through draining a person's energy level. The more powerful the person, the more force the black metal uses to suck out the person's energy level. The black metal's powers are infinite, and it is impossible to escape it, however, the black metal is so rare to find and almost impossible to refine that it has a truly legendary status within jianghu. Legend has it that to refine an arm's length of a metal chain, the lifeforce of two magical metal workers needs to be sacrificed.

To be able to see, not one, but two chains together on these captives, demonstrated the true might of the Zhua Zhu and gave the captives face. A loud murmur erupted from the crowd as they speculated who these people are. Didn't they all gather here to prepare for the pending battle with the Zuyi and the alliance sects? So far there has been no instructions on the fight and instead Yue Xiulan has taken out these two people.

"Everyone let me introduce you to the Zuyi sect leader and Wulin's supreme leader, Zu Bai Ye and his friend, the beautiful Lu Bai," she shouted before letting out a domineering laugh.

The crowd erupted in gleeful roars and thumping of weapons and swords. Yue Xiulan held her hand and silenced the crowd.

"Zu Bai Ye have very kindly submitted to Zhua Zhu without a fight and delivered himself here unarmed!" shouted Yue Xiulan with much glee.

She flew in front of the tall man and stroked his face gently wiping the beads of sweat dripping from his forehead. This is the power of the black metal chain, it is continuously absorbing the captive's powers and sucking away their lifeforce before leaving nothing but a dried-up skeleton when it is done.