Chapter 449

Chapter 449: Furious Revenge

The Ghost Realm Sect Leader’s face darkened upon hearing the Elders’ words. His icy gaze swept the room, confirming the speakers belonged to Immortal Youhuo’s faction as he’d anticipated.

In major sects, factions inevitably formed among powerful figures. The Ghost Realm Sect was no exception. Immortal Youhuo had allied with several Thunder Tribulation Immortals to create the sect’s second major power, secretly opposing the Sect Leader for years.

Though Immortal Youhuo had failed his mission this time, he stubbornly sought to muddy the waters.

"Negotiate with Fang Lie after such humiliation?" the Sect Leader sneered. "Our Ghost Realm Sect leads the Demonic Path! Would we bow to some junior?"

"Exactly!" supporters chimed in. "A great sect helpless against a thief? Ridiculous!"

"Brother Youhuo," another mocked, "as Deputy Leader, your weakness shames us."

"Fang Lie’s success can’t be mere luck," someone insinuated. "Perhaps he had inside help…"

"How could a Qi Sea cultivator escape Immortal Youhuo’s custody?" another pressed. "A late-stage Thunder Tribulation expert failing to restrain him? Suspicious indeed!"

Immortal Youhuo’s neck flushed crimson. "Lies! I’d never collude with that brat!"

"Then why suggest peace talks?" opponents jeered. "Planning to recover ‘stolen’ treasures together?"

"Clever scheme – thief gets spoils, you get credit. Mutual benefits, eh?"

"Enough!" Immortal Youhuo roared. "I speak for the sect! We’ve lost a quarter of our Eighth-Rank Treasures! When Fang Lie reveals our stolen artifacts, righteous sects will attack. With our combat power reduced 20%, how will we defend our resources?"

The assembly fell silent. His words struck home.

Stolen Eighth-Rank High-Grade treasures equaled ten Thunder Tribulation Immortals’ strength. The large treasure weapon alone rivaled Ninth-Rank Treasures. Neighboring evil factions would pounce on this weakness, following the Demonic Path’s survival-of-the-strongest law.

"Without recovering those treasures," Immortal Youhuo warned, "we’ll be devoured within millennia. They’re useless to outsiders anyway – only our Netherworld Ghost Fire can control them."

Pale faces replaced smirks. The righteous sects’ retaliation over stolen treasures was inevitable – a matter of face and honor. Combined with demonic rivals’ attacks, the Ghost Realm Sect faced annihilation.

Their only hope lay in Immortal Youhuo’s controversial proposal: negotiate with Fang Lie.

So, if the price was right, Fang Lie might actually return those worthless items.

After much deliberation, everyone reluctantly admitted that Immortal Youhuo had a point.

But the Ghost Realm Sect Leader refused to back down. He sneered coldly, "We can negotiate, but you must go yourself and bear full responsibility!"

Clearly, the Ghost Realm Sect Leader was trying to pin all the blame on Immortal Youhuo.

Immortal Youhuo protested immediately, waving his hands. "Absolutely not! I captured Fang Lie myself – he loathes me to the core. If I show up, negotiations will fail!"

"You’ll go whether you like it or not!" roared the Ghost Realm Sect Leader. "You created this mess – did you expect others to clean up after you?"

"How is this my mess? You approved my actions initially!" Immortal Youhuo retorted angrily. "Now that things went wrong, suddenly it’s my fault? I refuse to accept this!"

"You—" The Ghost Realm Sect Leader’s face turned livid with rage. Just as he was about to unleash a torrent of abuse, dozens of green lights streaked in – urgent Dao magic messages.

Everyone quickly read the messages. Reactions varied – some smirked with schadenfreude, others looked shocked, while a few trembled with fury.

The most enraged was Immortal Youhuo. He stamped his foot violently and howled, "Fang Lie! This means war between us!"

The messages reported complete destruction of a massive Ghost Realm Sect town spanning hundreds of miles.

Fang Lie had appeared above the city shouting, "Immortal Youhuo! Your first gift from me!" before performing secret techniques that triggered catastrophic explosions.

This town managed by Immortal Youhuo’s clan housed thousands of his direct descendants and sat atop enormous Spirit Stone Mineral Veins yielding millions of High-grade spirit stones yearly. Though containing lower-grade stones too, they remained unmined until maturing into top-grade quality – making it essentially a goldmine.

However, such massive Spiritual Energy concentrations posed extreme danger if disturbed. The sect enforced strict rules: no battles in town, miners with sealed Magic.

They never anticipated Fang Lie smuggling thunder pearls crafted by Thunder Tribulation Immortals. While hiding there earlier, he’d learned this was Immortal Youhuo’s territory and plotted revenge.

Disguised as a Demonic Path scattered cultivator, he’d teleported in and joined miners (who couldn’t carry storage items and had sealed Magic). Guards never suspected a kamikaze infiltrator.

Guided by an old bird, Fang Lie planted three thunder pearls in the mines. Later, when sect disciples locked down the city after his theft and halted the teleportation array, Fang Lie simply detonated them.

The triple thunder pearl blast combined with exploding Spirit Mines created apocalyptic devastation. The earth-shattering explosion wiped out everything within thousand-mile radius, leaving a hundred-mile wide bottomless pit. The flash was visible for tens of thousands of miles, tremors felt across regions.

The town and its hundreds of thousands of Demonic Path cultivators vanished instantly. Only Fang Lie’s Magic-amplified shout revealed the perpetrator.

For Immortal Youhuo, this was catastrophic – one of only three such towns under his control as a late-stage Thunder Tribulation expert. Worse, it housed half his talented descendants, including his prized successor: a Fire Tribulation stage son cultivated for millennia. This loss felt like having his heart ripped out.

Abandoning earlier compromise plans, Immortal Youhuo screamed, "We must kill Fang Lie! This ends only with one of us dead!"

Yet other Elders shifted positions oppositely:

"Perhaps…we shouldn’t provoke him further."

"Exactly! That undying freak’s loaded with Thunder Tribulation tools. If angered, he might keep Self-Detonating in our towns!"

"Our Ghost Realm Sect only has about hundred major towns. We can’t withstand his attacks!"