That was really generous of the Heavenly Fox Clan.
No matter what it was, they were willing to reward it free of charge to the Ten Heavenly Legends. But what if something costly – or possibly the most expensive item in Star Posthouse – were to catch the eyes of the Heavenly Legends?
But this was one of the most powerful and influential races in all of the galaxy.
The Heavenly Fox Clan would surely be able to grant anything.
Li Mu mused quietly as he quickly considered his next step. This was a good chance. He would use his Third Eye to carefully pick something good.
But before the envoy could finish speaking, something happened.
The shrill hoot of a klaxon pierced across the entire starship.
A sentry dashed in and hurried anxiously towards the envoy and whispered into his ears.
The King-Realm Cultivator’s face changed instantly.
It was Li Mu’s first time seeing the envoy’s face twisting into surprise and rage.
Without a word, he headed to the deck of the bow.
What just happened?
That it could cause the envoy, a King-Realm being, to lose his composure?
Curious to know, Li Mu and the others kept up.
At the bridge of Storm’s Eye, what was playing on the Water Mirror Technique-operated screen was something that left everyone inside, including Li Mu and his fellow Heavenly Legends, in utter shock.
Pieces of asteroids, each as large as a dumping ground, floated in the vast void of darkness. Scattered all around were corpses. Dried and dehydrated corpses – some intact, while others mutilated into pieces – of various races. The lifeless carcasses drifted aimlessly around the giant asteroids, accompanied by rubbles of buildings and debris of damaged starships…
It was a scene located about fifty thousand kilometers away from Storm’s Eye.
Something must have happened in the star system more than fifty thousand kilometers away.
“That’s White Glow.”
The envoy muttered darkly.
Li Mu looked harder.
It was true. The site of the catastrophe now displayed by the Water Mirror Technique-operated screen really was White Glow Intergalactic Star Posthouse.
Storm’s Eye’s captain, with his face fraught with shock and disbelief and his raspy voice growled with burgeoning rage, said, “Someone must have attacked White Glow, killing and plundering, and when they were done, they had even laid waste to it… How brazen are these people to attack a Star Posthouse belonging to the Heavenly Fox Clan!”
“It looks like it only happened not long ago.”
“Full speed ahead. We need to see if there are any clues still around.”
“There might be survivors.”
The champions of the Heavenly Fox Clan now in the bridge all seethed with anger and anxiety.
Storm’s Eye picked up its pace and breezed on quickly.
“So, White Glow belongs to the Heavenly Fox Clan!
“That’s why the envoy could make such a generous promise of gifting us anything we like!
“And that would also explain why did the ever-so-suave-and-placid envoy lose his composure all of a sudden.
“Someone had just thrashed his playground.”
A quarter of an hour later.
Storm’s Eye moored just at the outer peripherals of the floating space wreckage that was formerly the illustrious White Glow Intergalactic Star Posthouse.
The envoy brought with him a detachment of his clansmen and entered the rubble to investigate without the aid of any spacesuits or equipment.
At their current power levels, Li Mu and the rest of the other Heavenly Legends would have no problem moving through space without the aid of any spacesuits or equipment.
But this was the internal matter of the Clan and hence the Heavenly Legends thought it prudent to just remain on the outside. They lingered only nearby to refrain from prying
At present, Li Mu’s power of sight allowed him to pick up every detail as he scanned the ruins.
A brutal slaughter had taken place here.
From the sheer number of carcasses of beings from different races and types, the death toll numbered at least several hundred thousand. White Glow must have suffered a sudden attack that the Star Posthouse could barely defend itself in time. Whatever it was, it had snuffed out the life of every single being inside in just a short time before a powerful force ripped the whole Star Posthouse apart.
Several hundred thousand deaths.
A sea of dead carcasses glided listlessly in the barren void, surrounded by the many pieces of flotsam from the wreckage.
It was a morbidly ghast sight beyond description.
This was a man-made disaster of catastrophic scale.
Not an accident nor a tragedy of natural causes.
This was a cruel act of wickedness.
Some of the deaths looked so terrible that no amount of words could fully do justice to how pitiful their deaths were.
“Hmm? That’s…” Li Mu’s pupils constricted at something he noticed about a few of the corpses.
“How?!
“The manner of their injuries… Could it be her?!”
Li Mu’s heart thumped loudly.
He had seen the manner in which some of the victims were killed before.
It could be related to a person he knew.
“Wait. No. That’s impossible.
“She might have embodied that Cultivation Method, but there’s no way she would use it on innocent people.”
Li Mu was as flustered as a rabbit.
“No.”
“Never.”
He stared at the corpses for seconds before he activated his Third Eye. It was true. Of the several hundred thousand corpses now wafting around them, these few corpses belonged to very powerful warriors; perhaps the ten most powerful beings in this Star Posthouse. But here they were, with their blood and spiritual powers utterly bled dry, and dead like a bunch of dried husks.
Exactly the same as the deaths he encountered at the Heavenly Land.
The more he observed, the more certain he grew.
He shut down his Third Eye and his eyes grew dark and grim. He was confused.
The envoy and his clansmen returned later.
“Dead. All of them dead. From the signs we saw, this looks like the work of the Divine Nest, although we cannot yet be fully certain,” growled the envoy darkly. “We need to report this to the home planet. They need to be prepared. There hasn’t been an attack of such scale and destruction on our clan for centuries. Whoever’s behind this, they shall expect to feel our wrath.”
The rest of the Heavenly Fox Clansmen were boiling with anger too.
It was only too understandable. Most of the dead were Heavenly Fox Clan Cultivators and the Star Posthouse was part of the Clan’s territory for more than several thousand years. It was the golden jewel of their civilization and yet now it was sacked, pillaged, and destroyed. Nothing more could have been more humiliating to the whole of the Clan.
No Heavenly Fox Clan Cultivator could tolerate this.
“Prepare the ceremony for a proper send-off.”
The envoy spoke with sudden sternness.
His men rushed off to make the arrangements.
Storm’s Eye berthed just beside the ruins.
Every Heavenly Fox Clan sailor, officer, and champion onboard set off to work. They collected every single carcass they could find and assembled them together. Then, with the ancient rites of the Clan, they performed a ceremony known as a Space Sepulture for the dead that returned the dead to what they formerly were: ash to ash and dust to dust. The corpses all disintegrated and scattered into outer space like spores of fungi wafting in a breeze.
It really was a very solemn ceremony.
Li Mu was present as well.
And in fact, Li Mu noticed that even Bi Yan, clad in a spacesuit supplied to her by the sailors on board, was helping to collect the carcasses too. She looked absolutely enraged too.
More than a hundred thousand carcasses, so many that they would look like ants from a distance. The work took almost a day before the bodies were all assembled and the last rites completed.
This was not a fight, nor were they gathering up trash.
Even a King-Realm Cultivator like the envoy maintained proper respect for the dead by refraining from using his magic to draw in the carcasses or destroying them without administering the proper rites.
The envoy fully demonstrated what Li Mu saw as graveness and solemnness.
“The Heavenly Fox Clan… Such a harmonious and cohesive race…”
Li Mu thought pensively.
That a race could endure for thousands of years and rise up to become one of the greatest races in the Ziwei Star Zone, all that did not come without reason.
When everything was done, Storm’s Eye prepared to set sail again.
The mood was somber and gloomy onboard.
With teary eyes red and sodden with anguish, Bi Yan followed quietly behind Li Mu.
The champions of the Clan also fought to keep their anger and vengeance in check.
They collected what proof and clues they found. The investigation would be left to the higher echelons within the Clan’s hierarchy. Every Heavenly Fox Clansman had faith in that the truth shall be revealed and proper justice would be dispensed to avenge the dead.
Such was the pride of the Heavenly Fox Clan as one of the greatest races in the galaxy.
Little did everyone onboard Storm’s Eye realized that the destruction of White Glow was only just the beginning.
When Storm’s Eye reached what should be the next Star Posthouse in their path, everyone was aghast beyond words.
They stumbled upon another site of carnage.
The Star Posthouse was also destroyed, like how White Glow was.
Pieces of debris and rubble, along with thousands and thousands of corpses, littered every inch of the space before them…
It almost felt as if this was a reenactment of what they just saw at White Glow just now.
The same dread.
The same despair.
“How… ” the envoy’s voice came like a moan.
Even his men were all stupefied too, utterly bewildered.
Li Mu and the others might not have come here before and nor did they know to whom did the Star Posthouse belonged, but the dismal sight of the massacre before them coupled with all the wreckage told them enough: something catastrophic must have happened here too.
If it was only White Glow being attacked and destroyed, then perhaps the act of aggression was something aimed specifically at the Heavenly Fox Clan. It could only be pirates who had destroyed the Star Posthouse after sacking it in frenzied madness. But whoever was behind this, they had destroyed two Star Posthouses in quick succession. There was only one word for such acts:
War.
The beacons of war had been lit.
“This is a Star Posthouse belonging to the Heavenly Deity Clan.”
Said the Heavenly Fox Clan envoy.
“I can’t believe that Divine Nest would dare go so far. To offend both the Heavenly Fox Clan and the Heavenly Deity Clan at the same time, they’re asking for their own destruction!”
The envoy exclaimed incredulously.
Li Mu shuddered.
This was not the first time he heard the name “Divine Nest”.
Ghost Seer had once said this name when he mistook Li Mu as a member of this mysterious group.
And now, Li Mu had heard with his own ears the very mention of this name again by the envoy.
What on earth was the Divine Nest?
