Chapter 509 — The Petty Old Thieves Fall at a Single Stroke

Shen Mu's face darkened—then he remembered that he had no flesh or blood to darken. The traditions of the Dark Demon Sect, it seemed, were utterly unlike what he had imagined: to scheme against the reigning Cult Master brought not the punishment of three knives and six holes, but was instead a traditional 'virtue,' and successive Cult Masters had all taken pride in ambushing their predecessor to rise to the seat!

"I never ambushed anyone," Shen Mu said, with patience. "The Heavenly Sage Ancestor took a liking to me and raised me directly to Cult Master."

"Master! Master!"

Cult Master Yulian waved to a young girl and laughed. "The little Cult Master is here—a freak! He actually took the seat without ever ambushing his predecessor!"

The girl came out of her own palace and walked toward them, astonished. "Can such a thing be? You did not seduce your master, corrupt his Dao-heart, and make him lose to you in the decisive contest?"

Shen Mu shook his head. "No. The Heavenly Sage Ancestor decreed it and passed the seat to me."

"That breaks the tradition of my Heavenly Sage Sect!"

The girl was bright and lovely, with two large silver earrings glinting on her ears, and she looked at Shen Mu with some contempt. "To match wits and courage with master and disciple alike—that is the fine tradition of our Heavenly Sage Sect. That you threw away this inheritance is truly tiresome! Without challenging one's master, how can each generation surpass the last? The origin of your position as Cult Master is not upright!"

Shen Mu was dumbstruck and could not speak.

This girl must be of the Si family. By the order of succession among the Dark Demon Sect's successive Cult Masters, she should be Cult Master Si Yuanwei—an ancestor of Granny Zhu. Few of the Si family had been Cult Masters, but there had been one or two, and Si Yuanwei was one of them.

"I was originally the Holy Maiden of the Holy Sect," said Si Yuanwei. "Later I made Cult Master Fuyun lose his heart to me, corrupted his Dao-heart, and Fuyun sighed deeply, saying that the Holy Sect in my hands would surely be stronger than in his, and so he performed the crown anointing and transmitted the Way. You, however, relied on the Ancestor's favor to take the seat—a position without proper title or justification!"

Cult Master Zuyang sneered. "Grandmaster, the one who passed the seat to him was my little martial uncle. Now you see how wrong it was to think of passing the seat to him? My little uncle became the Heavenly Sage Ancestor and wrecked the age-old rule of our Heavenly Sage Sect! This little Cult Master did not kill or gravely wound his predecessor, yet he still has the face to meet us!"

Si Yuanwei flushed slightly. "I had thought little Wenyuan was handsome enough to corrupt my Dao-heart and let me seize the position cleanly," she said, "never expecting that it was your master who outwitted me. But what Wenyuan did truly wounded my heart. Is he not dead? Let us have him brought over and asked ... Master Hu Jun, have you seen Wenyuan?"

A handsome, strangely bewitching man walked over and smiled. "I saw him just now. He was entangled by a huge skeleton who said he came from the mortal world, clinging to him and weeping and squalling, and wrung a great many tears out of him. By now he has probably slipped away somewhere to wipe his nose. And this one is—"

"Our Holy Sect's new Cult Master."

"The seat has no proper origin," Si Yuanwei said offhandedly. "It was not won by fighting but passed down by succession. How shameful!"

"Can there be such a thing?"

Cult Master Hu Jun's face turned cold and he sneered. "Truly, each age brings forth its talents, and each generation is worse than the last! The hearts of men are no longer what they were. A Sage Cult Master who did not win his seat by force—can you keep your throne secure?"

"Shameless boasting!"

Several more former Cult Masters came over, and a handsome man among them sneered at these words. "Flourishing all the more, you say? I hear the mortal world is now ruled by the Jingping Kingdom, which has swallowed the world. How did you make the Holy Sect flourish? Or did you sell the Sect for glory and willingly become an adopted son–Cult Master to the Emperor?"

Shen Mu swallowed his anger and smiled. "And who might you be?"

The handsome man whisked open his folding fan with a flick. "Have you never visited the Yueguang Hall on Holy Lin Mountain? I am Cult Master Yueguang!"

Shen Mu laughed aloud. "Rotten wood in that hall—I have never paid my respects there. On Holy Lin Mountain, I honor only the woodcutter who transmitted the Way, the founding Cult Master, and the Three Sage Kings. The rest of the Cult Masters are, in my eyes, no more than flies that buzz and dogs that grovel—unworthy of my reverence."

"What nerve!"

More former Cult Masters came. Shen Mu followed the sound and looked at them; they were all handsome men and pretty women. Clearly the Dark Demon Sect was not like the Hall of Human Sovereigns. In the Hall of Human Sovereigns, anyone, male or female, could become a Human Sovereign, but the Human Sovereigns set no store by their appearance, letting their looks wither with age, and rarely preserved their youth forever. The Cult Masters of the Heavenly Sage Sect, however, were quite the opposite. In the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra were the Seven Chapters of Creation, and by cultivating them one could keep one's features forever youthful, could even turn one's face back to boyhood or girlhood. Every Sage Cult Master Shen Mu now saw was a youth or maiden, bright and fresh of face. Even the Young Ancestor appeared as a boy, and minded his image very carefully.

"My Thousand Bones Hall of Feng Qiangu—I suppose the little Cult Master has never paid homage there either?"

The Thousand Bones Cult Master stepped forward and sneered. "Your seat came by succession, not won by your own strength. Its origin is crooked, and you still dare call us flies and grovelling dogs, unworthy of reverence? What is there in you worth revering?"

"Exactly. You have neither the name nor the right. What face have you to meet us, to meet the ancestral masters?"

"You do not honor even the rules of the Holy Sect, let alone us, your ancestral masters. Are you not, at your tender age, betraying your master and destroying your ancestors?"

"Little Cult Master—"

...

"Silence!" Shen Mu's fury flared and he bellowed.

The circle fell quiet.

Shen Mu laughed heartily, spreading his robes wide on both sides, and said aloud: "I succeeded to the position of Cult Master at twenty. When I mounted the seat, the Sect was in ruins, a hundred wastes awaiting renewal—a broken mess left me by the previous Cult Master, Fan Xuanshu. After I took the reins, I reformed what was harmful and what was beneficial, joined hands with Jingping, drove the Buddhist school west, struck heavy blows at the Daoist school, and brought two great holy lands to their knees.

"I changed the laws and opened the Way, expanded the doctrine, established schools, founded the Heavenly Sage Academy, and gathered the arts and divine powers of every school and sect under heaven to right our name!

"I created the Eighteen Swords and established the Original Spirit through the Six Harmonies.

"The children of our Sect now dominate a hundred thousand li from east to west. Of the several million who hold divine powers, from the Jingping Emperor's own teacher down to the common laborer and the running footman, in court and countryside alike there are members of our Sect!

"With my cultivation at the Seven Stars realm, I have done such deeds!"

His gaze swept the circle, scanning the successive Sage Cult Masters of the Dark Demon Sect, and he sneered: "And you?"

"In your hands, the Holy Sect degenerated into a demonic way and came to be called the Dark Demon Sect—hunted by all, cursed by all!