Chapter 9-259: The Storm over Shanghai, Part III (1/2)

When his Dantian hatched and consumed him, to the very end he had thought he was ascending to a higher state of existence.

Jade Dragon had inherited his progenitor’s hatred of the Powered, and his thirst for power. He had killed hundreds of them; young, old, powerful, weak, it did not matter. They were to be deprived of the strength they had not earned, so arbitrarily given to some and not others, and rendered down into pills to make the truly deserving strong.

His power, coupled with the inherited discipline he had gained from his weak and foolish progenitor, had rapidly risen to levels far beyond that of the other Daoists who had sprung up and rapidly began to seize power. It took the idiots gifted by Heaven too long to realize what was happening. When the Daoists finally turned from opposing the undead to removing the infection that was the Powered, they had died in glorious droves, and their arbitrarily-bestowed strength had gone to the true inheritors of the world.

He was a great leader among his kind, one of the oldest and wisest, having discerned many secrets of the Dao, and passed on some lesser enlightenments to those who followed him. His skill in Formations was particularly great, and had helped him pass two of the Tribulations meant to erase him from existence. It would defy this bombardment of his Sect with ease.

More Powered, crawling out of their little rat holes in that pathetic island they had fled to, come to exact vengeance? He sneered inside as he watched the weak die, feeling them wink out of existence, while the strong were conscripted to help power the Formation that would keep them safe.

Soon enough these impure things tainted by Heaven would run out of strength. Certainly they were displaying great power... but all hasty strength faded in time. The invaders were extremely outnumbered, and the rabble mortals only good for breeding more immortals would naturally be completely useless when it came time for his servants to mount their counterstrike.

He licked his lips as he thought of the magic being wielded by the elf-woman, and the power he would remove from her Bloodline. It would help him break through the next Level, without a doubt, and what secrets he would learn when he advanced had him almost shaking in anticipation.

Shanghai burned, but he did not care. It was but a home for mortals, and his chosen abode was untouched. If they lived in misery, that was on them; he and his were completely unaffected.

He was the Jade Dragon, standing at the forefront of the Daoist Immortals, free and unconstrained by the Heavens! The matters of mortals scrabbling in the dirt were no longer of his concern.

They were coming...

The filthy air they brought with him, stirring up the purity of the Qi, the true power of the world finally released to suppress the uncaring power of the Heavens, was easy to sense as it advanced, burning viciously at the smooth flows of Qi, disrupting the painstaking work of reclaiming this despoiled land for the true strength of existence.

Just one more reason to kill them, bringing their unclean and unrefined filth back again, making his underlings work even harder to be rid of it once again.

All things in time...

He had to admire their patience. He could feel eyes on him, but could see little in the falling rain, so thick with the cloying stench of their ‘mana’ and ‘chi’, obfuscating everything, even his divine senses. He could only sense the collapse of the Qi in the surroundings as it was contaminated once again, and watch the dance of the lightning coming down, as fast and furious as anything a Tribulation coughed up...

He wanted that woman’s Power so badly he could taste it, and knew his underlings were thinking the same.

None would dare contest with him over such a prize, however. He was the Jade Dragon, after all!

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“What pretentious pricks,” Sama said, studying them, the Mask of Clarity around her eyes letting her see right through the rain, and her Null letting her completely ignore the waves of awareness the Daoists were tossing around, trying to see what was going on. It was like a bunch of invisible, warring spotlights creeping over the skin, trying to worm their way into everything.

The Daoists were holed up in their little Formation, so cute, thinking that it would save them. At a glance, there were at least two thousand of them, numbering the elite students of the Jade Dragon Sect, as well as the elders and masters of several other Schools and Sects that had fled there when their defenses were breached.

Some were on the wall, some were flying. Letting the ground soil their feet was something only for the weak, of course. All Senior Daoists rarely set foot on the ground, not that the ground wanted them touching it. Their revulsion for dust and grime was because the dust and the grime of the mortal world seriously didn’t like them, any more than the rest of Creation did.

They thought themselves above the red dust, when actually the red dust was revolted by them, and so mutual antipathy drove the entire thing... the Daoists simply couldn’t tell that was the real case, so wrapped up in their own perceptions that actually believing that Creation itself was appalled by them was of no importance. They would simply change Creation to suit them!

If that happened to kill multitudes, it was not their concern. The deaths of the weak were dictated by the strong. If you didn’t want that to happen, then you had to be strong... which made you better prey!