Descending from the Divine Moon Realm was much easier than ascending to it. Once they were free of the moon's gravity and reached the lower levels of the cosmic aether, the gravity of the Welkin plane began working on them. Overlord Bodhi took off the hat he was wearing, revealing his bald head as he descended to the Flameyellow Continent with Little You in his embrace. The place hadn't changed since he had last seen it.
"They haven't attacked yet? Does that mean the two children from the Divine Moon Realm haven't left yet?" Bodhi smiled coldly. He didn't linger, as he was set on returning as soon as possible. He didn't have any reason to rush the invasion of the Flameyellow Continent anyway. Not to mention, if it went too quickly, they might provoke a reaction from the Divine Moon Realm.
Now that his powers had recovered, it wouldn't be easy for the Divine Moon Realm to kill him. However, he knew he still had weaknesses: for instance, his kin in the Ninefold Hell. They didn't have access to a stellunar source and had nowhere to escape to.
"Before I reach my former peak, it's best that I don't attract the attention of the Divine Moon Realm." Lately he had been really careful as he cultivated up on the moon. "With my fiendgod bloodline, I reached the peak of the Ascension stage after seven centuries of cultivation, yet my real power is only at the first level, thanks to not having access to stellunar source. But now I've recovered around seventy percent of my strength, so there are no longer many on the moon that can match me. Once I reach my peak again, I’ll be on par with the strongest elites there. By then…."
The pent-up hate built over two hundred millennia burned in his heart. He hadn't been improving his cultivation on the moon, but was merely recovering it to its former state. He was only laying low to protect his race and family.
After passing through the bottomless pit, he took out his gift. It was a flower infused with moonlight that gave off a beautiful, multi-colored glow. While it was a common sight on the moon, it was a precious treasure in the Ninefold Hell.
"Huh?" The world seemed oddly quiet. It was as if the entire Abyssal Battlefield was bereft of activity, completely unlike how it usually was. Having had so much time to recover, the specters should be filled with vigor. He had a bad omen.
"This isn't right. We took every step carefully and didn't make any mistakes. What could’ve gone wrong?" He carried Little You and went straight for the grey star. He could hear his own nervous breathing as he approached it; it was just like the time they were trying to break the Skysource Hellshaker Formation.
When he finally arrived, his vision pierced the veil of mist around the grey star. He immediately turned straight to his palace. There was a large group of specters gathered there, all blankly waiting for his return. When they finally noticed him, Bodhi saw the results of what he was most worried about.
There had been a grand battle! Even though some of the traces had been cleaned up, the corpses and blood were still plain to see. He saw rows of corpses lined up in the distance, still unburied. The specters wanted their overlord to witness the sheer devastation they had suffered in his absence. There were at least tens of thousands of bodies there, a realization that seemed to make his heart bleed.
Then Little You shrieked in such a horrifying manner that even Bodhi began panicking. He looked where the little girl was looking and saw a quaint coffin at the entrance of the palace. He was still airborne, but he could clearly see the person within the coffin. His eyeballs seemed to tense at the sight and he felt his organs churning and tearing apart. He felt like spikes were piercing his entire body, making him bleed from every orifice. His wife of centuries was his closest family. Until just recently, they were practically inseparable, but now death had torn them apart before he was even remotely ready for it.
Who would he share his dreams and aspirations with now? What point was there left to fight for? The flower from the moon fell from his hand to the ground. He struggled to approach the coffin, and when he reached it, he placed his hands on it. The one slumbering inside had long stopped breathing.
"Mom… Mom… wake up…." Little You crawled into the coffin and snuggled against the overlady's chest just like any child would. She caressed her mother’s head with her two little hands. Whenever she did that, her mother would always wake up, but no matter how she shook her this time, she would never open her eyes ever again. "Nooo! Don't leave me behind!"
She placed her ears against her mother's chest, wanting to listen to her heartbeat like she always had. Her soft sobs cut into Bodhi's body like knives. He shakily raised his hand as tears of blood flowed from his pale eyes and a wild power burst from the depths of his body. He looked to the sky and roared, almost instantly scattering the dark clouds above. The entire Ninefold Hell shook with his heart-wrenching roar, with many specters tearing up at the same time.
"Overlord!" Countless specters knelt to him, their eyes all bloodshot with hate. This had nothing to do with good or evil. It was a feud, plain and simple, and vengeance was their destiny! Now, their hate threatened to overwhelm the heavens. Every fiber of their being had inherited the overwhelming hatred of their ancestors.
"Tell me who did this!" Bodhi's teeth shook as he spoke.
"It's the Divine Moon Realm!"
"The moon guide brought two elites here and started slaughtering us without explanation!"
"The overlady only went there to receive them, but a woman immediately killed her! All three of them were much more powerful than us! Many of us were sacrificed, and all the royals were completely exterminated!"
"Overlord, this is a debt of blood we must repay! We have to let the Divine Moon Realm experience what we have today!"
"Overlord! This grudge will never fade!"
Their cries of despair were all heard by Bodhi.
"Even though we only just managed to see the light, they didn't give us any chances and killed us like animals!"
"Overlord, if you find the moon guide, you'll definitely find the other two culprits!"
Bodhi was the sole remaining hope for all the other specters. He was the only thing that helped them keep their will to live. About a tenth of the billion specters were now at the Ninefold Hell, crying out in rage for Bodhi to help them.
Bodhi left the coffin and turned to his subjects, many of whom had been beheaded without mercy. Many of them had been his comrades his entire life, his brothers. He recalled the times they shared in their youth.
Now, they were nothing but cold corpses.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Tears of blood continued flowing from his pale eyes. His deep voice rang out across the field. "Let's bury them."
"Overlord, what should we do next?"
"Spread out and settle down in the Abyssal Battlefield. Leave the rest to me." Despite his searing rage, he was completely cold and calculating like a lifeless machine. He switched out the coffin of his wife for a crystal one that could maintain the corpse and prepared to leave even though he had just returned. His thirst for vengeance could not be understated.
"Little You, let's go," he said, putting up a gentler expression.
"Where are we going, Daddy?"
"The Divine Moon Realm. We'll go to Huiyue City and kill them."
"But wouldn't that expose us?"
"It won't. We'll only kill those three. Nobody else will recognize me. As far as they’re concerned, a nameless, unseen killer lurks among them. One by one, the divine moonrace will be snuffed out. I’ll continue terrorizing them until every single one of them is dead!"
A killer nobody could see would be most terrifying, especially one that was a peak ascendant.
"I want revenge, too," the little girl said.
"We’ll take it together." Bodhi held her hand as he carried her while he ascended through the bottomless pit and headed back toward the Divine Moon Realm.
"Daddy, will we still attack the Flameyellow Continent?"
"We can't, for now."
"Why?"
"They might’ve left quite a number of transmission stones behind. If we attack them, we'll draw the Divine Moon Realm's attention here. I wouldn't really mind it, but I can't afford to let our kin be their targets once more. What our people need is time to settle down in silence. It’ll make matters easier once I kill the moon guide, as well as the others who know about my presence. After that, I’ll just be a nameless ghost."
"Alright!"
……
Tianming had asked a dozen people about Qingyu and Ye Lingfeng at the Divine Moon Realm and received more or less identical answers. Qingyu was known as the Ninemoon Goddess and had been brought to Orderia, so she wasn't in any trouble for now. Instead, Ye Lingfeng was the one who might need help.
