Previously, on the wall of Fort South, King of Night had some reflections while facing the mountain.
The mountain where the Fort South tribe lived was actually his hometown! Unfortunately, he was unable to fulfill his ambition. He neither successfully advanced to the Bright Realm nor seized the throne of the Fort South tribe. Instead, Lilies Archer succeeded Fergus Archer and became the queen of Fort South!
Zack Archer! When Sean heard this name, a touch of surprise flashed across his face. King Ron’s most trusted aide, the mysterious King of Night, was actually Fergus Archer’s own brother?
Damn! Sean had to admit, this outcome was far beyond his expectation, as shocking as King of Night’s half-human, half-monster true face!
It seemed like, five years ago, the reason why King Ron teamed up with Lilies Archer to plant a poison source in Sean’s body was all thanks to King of Night! King of Night was the tie between King Ron and Fort South. As for Fergus Archer, the poor fellow, he probably didn’t know until his death that his own brother and his own daughter were both conspirators with King Ron, all plotting against him! Therefore, his failure and tragic death were almost inevitable, even without Sean, he was bound to lose and die! He simply couldn’t compete with that old fox, King Ron! King Ron played a great game of chess!
However, now that Fergus Archer was already dead and the Fort South barbarians had fallen into the hands of Lilies Archer, compared to the true identity of King of Night, what Sean cared more about were the words that King of Night said later. It was about the matter of the Hall of Jade.
So, Sean asked, “Explain clearly, what happened after you entered the Hall of Jade?” This was directly related to the safety of Parker Mason!
“People! So many people!” “At least dozens!” “And!” “All of them were Complete Stage cultivators!!!”
King of Night recalled, “I was taken into a huge palace by the people of the Hall of Jade. After I went in, I realized that there were dozens of people chosen by the Hall of Jade just like me!”
“At first!” “We all thought that the Hall of Jade was going to help us advance into the Bright Realm and strengthen the power of the Hall of Jade!” “But then!” “Not until they revealed their true colors, locked us all in cages, fed us like a pack of dogs, and every three days, they would inject us with some unknown venom. As we watched people transform into beasts and die, we truly realized the cruel intentions of those bastards in the Hall of Jade!”
They were not there to help us at all! Instead, they were using us as living experiments!!!
Living experiments! In other words, Complete Stage cultivators like King of Night didn’t get any attention from the Hall of Jade. The Hall of Jade just treated them like lab rats, and their life and death were insignificant!
“What experiment?” Sean asked further. The thought of using Complete Stage cultivators as experiment subjects and causing them to transform into beasts was chilling just to hear about!
“I don’t know,” King of Night shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. “We were just lab rats in their hands. They would never tell us the purpose and content of the experiments.”
“All I know is that the huge palace we went to was just one of the many branches of the Hall of Jade, and we were just a small part of the many subjects the Hall of Jade selected.”
“I remember, injections every three days. Some people died after the first injection, and less than half made it to the third injection. Ten days after the third injection, those who survived began to transform into beasts at different levels…”
Upon hearing this, Sean couldn’t help but ask, “Does transformation mean the experiment was successful?”
“No!” King of Night shook his head without hesitation and said solemnly, “On the contrary, transformation indicates failure, not success!”
“Therefore, anyone who showed signs of transformation after the third injection would stop the experiment and be secretly disposed of by the Hall of Jade!”
“At that time, I began to transform after the fourth injection. I was lucky and managed to escape. Even if I escaped from the Hall of Jade, I would have died a miserable death with the ongoing transformation. Luckily, I met His Majesty!”
“It was him! Using the ancestral underground altar and the soul-devouring formation of the Shirine Empire royal family, he helped me remove the poison source from my body, prevented further transformation, and saved my life!!!”
As he spoke, King of Night glanced at the colossal altar between them, standing at a staggering 9. 9 meters in diameter. Sean’s gaze also fell upon the altar. The Soul-Devouring Formation!
Having personally experienced the terrifying power of the Soul-Devouring Formation, Sean had to admit that aside from refining bloodlines and assisting in cultivation, its ability to identify and eradicate poison sources was indeed extraordinary.
Otherwise, Lilies Archer wouldn’t have spent five long years specially developing a method to plant the poison source at the core of the bright energy, specifically to counter the Soul-Devouring Formation and King Ron. King Ron had once saved King of Night’s life. It was no wonder that King of Night had always followed King Ron loyally and had earned King Ron’s trust.
However, he always wore a mask of wisdom, never showing his true face. Firstly, his beast-like face was simply too frightening, and secondly, he probably didn’t want to attract the attention of the Hall of Jade, which could bring about his own destruction. He even risked implicating King Ron!
After a brief pause, King of Night said solemnly, “Because of that past experience, because of those bastards of the Hall of Jade, although I was lucky enough to save my life, I ruined my path of martial arts progression. The Complete Stage became my final point. In this lifetime, I will never be able to aspire to the legendary Bright Realm again!”
Is that so? Sean pondered and understood. No wonder when they were in the cave at Hill Riverside, King Ron was so confident in letting King of Night go to see Sean with the Cauldron alone. Sean was somewhat suspicious at the time. Such an important object, wasn’t King Ron afraid that King of Night would take the Cauldron and run?
After all, with King of Night’s peak strength in the Dark Realm, if he had the assistance of the Cauldron, it would not be impossible for him to advance into the ranks of the Bright Realm. Furthermore, King Ron was trapped in this underground altar and couldn’t do anything to King of Night.
Even when Sean had suggested that King of Night join him in refining the Black Scaled Python to strive for a breakthrough opportunity, King of Night had flatly refused. His reason was that as a subject, he had no interest in the so-called royal resources.
Sean had admired King of Night’s loyalty to King Ron at that time. Now it seemed that it was all nonsense. He just couldn’t!
Sean pondered for a moment, then asked in confusion, “According to what you said, all the people chosen by the Hall of Jade for the experiments were Complete Stage cultivators. What about my father?”
“Five years ago, his strength had just broken through to the Late Stage, and he was still quite a distance from the Complete Stage.”
“Why would the Hall of Jade take him away?”
This point was clearly contradictory to King of Night’s narrative!
“I don’t know,” King of Night shook his head, “The Hall of Jade always acts mysteriously and unpredictably. Nobody knows what they want to do, let alone why they do it.”
“Perhaps they have other experiments that don’t require Complete Stage cultivators.”
“Perhaps they took your father not for the same reason as me, to be used in some living experiment.”
“Who knows?”
“After all, your father was taken five years ago, while I entered the Hall of Jade more than a decade ago…”
That’s true! With a gap of about ten years between them, it’s unlikely that the Hall of Jade would continue the same experiment for such a long duration.
So, why did the people from the Hall of Jade take my father, Parker Mason?
The answer, it seems, is known only to the people of the Hall of Jade.
“One last question,” Sean said coldly, “Where is this Hall of Jade you speak of?”
This time, if he can successfully assassinate King Ron, then if he gets the chance in the future, Sean naturally wants to locate his father, Parker Mason. But the Hall of Jade is mysteriously elusive and not easy to find.
“It’s in the North Kingdom,” King of Night didn’t hide anything and truthfully said, “I only know that it’s near Waterock Town in the North Kingdom. As for the specific location, I have no idea.”
“Everyone who enters the Hall of Jade is taken there in a state of unconsciousness, and after they enter, they basically die in there!”
“I am a special case!”
“At the time, I managed to escape from the Hall of Jade. I ran down an underground tunnel, kept running, and at the end of the tunnel was a deep pool. I jumped into the pool, kept swimming, and at the end of the pool was Mirror Lake, about twenty miles north of Waterock Town!”
Upon hearing this, Sean was stunned.
The North Kingdom?
From King of Night’s words, it seemed that the secret branch of the Hall of Jade was connected to Mirror Lake.
Sean asked, “Doesn’t the Shirine Empire have a branch of the Hall of Jade?”
“No!”
King of Night shook his head again, “I should know more about the many cities of the Shirine Empire than anyone else!”
“These years, I have also been secretly collecting information about the Hall of Jade.”
“Unfortunately, I have found very little.”
“However…”
As he spoke, King of Night seemed to suddenly remember something, “Previously, to rescue your daughter Phyllis, you went to Crane and attended an underground auction, where you purchased the Ladies Star Grass for over a hundred billion. Right?”
“From the intelligence I have gathered over the years, that so-called underground auction is likely controlled by the Hall of Jade.”
Upon hearing this, Sean was shocked.
King of Night’s words made Sean instantly think of the young man at the underground auction, who kept raising the bid, forcing Sean to temporarily activate the S-class authority of the Supreme Black Card.
And the price of activating the S-class authority was to accept tasks from the List of Jade to repay the money.
The List of Jade was just another part of the Hall of Jade!
If the entire underground auction was controlled by the Hall of Jade, then everything seemed to make sense. That young man, as a member of the Hall of Jade, knew that Sean was determined to get the Ladies Star Grass. He was both the seller and the buyer, naturally he could raise the price arbitrarily.
It wasn’t just a hundred billion. Even if he had asked for two hundred billion, three hundred billion, five hundred billion, or a trillion, it would have just been a matter of words. He didn’t need to actually pay!
In simple terms, he was openly scamming Sean!
The only thing Sean couldn’t figure out was why the Hall of Jade staged such a scene, forcing Sean to activate the S-class authority of the Supreme Black Card. Was their goal really just to get Sean to take on some tasks from the List of Jade?
Sean felt intuitively that things couldn’t be that simple!
“You can go now!”
As for the matter of the Hall of Jade, Sean would investigate it personally when he had the chance. The urgent task now was Cecilia’s safety and to eliminate the threat of King Ron.
The two of them had been talking for two or three minutes, and the battle outside was still going on. They had no idea what the situation was.
“Thanks!”
Sean kept his promise and let King of Night go, which made King of Night breathe a sigh of relief. He bent over, picked up the face mask from the rubble under his feet, put it back on his beast-like face, turned around and left. When he reached the door of the underground altar, he said without looking back, “Today, you spared my life.”
“In the future, if one day you find the location of the Hall of Jade, and you want to go there to take revenge and save your father, remember to take me with you!”
“At that time, I will give you back this life of mine!”
After saying this, he left through the door and entered the complex network of tunnels outside the altar.
Clearly, the Hall of Jade had ruined King of Night’s martial arts journey and had become an indelible shadow in his heart, turning into his inner demon. However, with his Complete Stage strength, he probably had no chance to avenge his grievances in his lifetime. Therefore, he had said such words. He saw Sean’s huge potential. As long as Sean could survive and given time, perhaps Sean could actually do the things that King of Night had always wanted to do but couldn’t.
As for this, Sean didn’t care. The life or death of King of Night was no longer important to him.
Whoosh! Sean looked up at the crack in the floor that Cecilia had just slashed open, pushed hard with his feet, and his body suddenly leaped up. He jumped out of the underground altar and into the Hall of Throne.
By this time, the vast Hall of Throne was already in a mess, with traces of battle everywhere. The doors and windows around were all shattered, in ruin, while Cecilia and King Ron had left the Hall of Throne and were fiercely battling in the square in front of it.
Standing in the hall, one could hear the rumbling sound of explosions outside, like rolling thunder, deafening.
Therefore, Sean immediately rushed out the door and ran out of the Hall of Throne!