(MC POV)

I headed towards the only room where there was the sound of conversation, knocking loudly on the door frame before stepping foot inside.

"Hi, got a delivery for the trashy, shitty lord. Would you kindly place your seal here?"

The people in the room turned towards me, three of them wearing distinct Dark Sect cloaks with their hoods thrown up while the last one was the city lord.

The city lord spluttered when he saw me, pointing his finger at me accusingly, "You? What? How did you..."

One of the cloaked men leapt to his feet, thrusting his arm out to fire off a cloud of black miasma at me.

I raised my hand and halted the miasma in its tracks, redirecting it towards the cloaked man beside him when he tried to conjure up a black lightning.

The miasma immediately melted the guy's hood before moving on to his face, the Dark Sect member dropping his Technique and letting loose a guttural scream as his head melted off his shoulders, disintegrating even before it hit the ground.

"Want to try again?" I smirked.

The hooded man sighed before turning to the city lord, "What in the blazes did you do to get him here?!"

The city lord's face was one of bewilderment, "Wha… What? Wh… Who is he?"

The other Dark Sect Practitioner slammed the table, breaking it into half, "You bloody ingrate! How the hell do you not know the strongest Practitioner on the continent?!"

The colour on the city lord's face drained away immediately.

"I… I… I didn't know…"

"Well great, everything is ruined now. You can forget about what was agreed for you because it's not going to happen!" The first hooded guy screeched.

I turned behind me with a smirk on my face, "See Brendan? Entrance is important, understand? Make a great enough entrance and things will play out by itself without much effort on your part."

"I… I understand, Master."

The seated Dark Sect Member turned to me, "Master Lin… What would it take for you to pretend we were never here?"

I scoffed, "You guys have been a pain in my ass for the longest time and you think you can just walk out of here?"

"A trade perhaps?" The other one suggested.

Oh? This is the first time I see a Dark Sect member not kept trying to cut my head off after I show myself. I think every single instance where I've met with one of them has resulted in total annihilation for them.

Wait, they did attack me first, so I guess not much changed. Oops.

Well, I'm not delusional enough to not suspect they would stab me in the back right afterwards but the fact they brought up a 'trade' intrigued me.

I gestured for him to continue, "Let's hear what you got then?"

"I need your guarantee of our safety first."

I smiled at him, "You don't get to decide the terms here."

The hooded man clicked his teeth, looking towards his remaining companion who nodded his head at him.

The man reached his hand into his sleeve, pulling out a scroll that he lifted up to show me.

I raised my eyebrow at him, still maintaining the dark spear hidden in their shadows just in case they try something.

"Names of all the agents we have on your side of the BeiYang continent, including the locations of their bases. Some names might even surprise you, Master Lin."

Brendan came up from behind me, "Oh? And you just carry such a convenient scroll around with you all the time? How do we know the names are legitimate?"

"You might know by now that our Dark Sect does not originate from your side of BeiYang continent, but from the country of Dong instead. The people here are mostly sleeper agents or branches of our organisation."

I actually didn't know that nor do I really care, but I'll just keep my mouth shut and see where he goes.

"The higher ups have been quite… Dissatisfied… With the members' performance on this side and we were sent to inspect and cull them if necessary. Believe me when I say that our Sect had no intention of crossing you, Master Lin. All we wanted was to fulfill our goals with as little obstructions as possible."

"Yeah, ok. Like controlling a monster army to invade the capital city? Researching on summoning a Great One? Taking control of Abbadon of the Abyss? Like those wouldn't have affected me?"

The one that was still seated shook his head, "As we said, that was not our goal. The branch head here has lost sight of our original goal and focused everything into gaining personal power. That's why we're here to put a stop to it."

I tilted my head, "The fact that you guys are also trying to carve a tunnel through Death Mountains for an invasion force to get here doesn't help your case."

"It will if you know who's the head here," He unfurled the scroll, revealing the top most name on the list.

"Bei Ji Xiong, third prince of the Royal Bei family," I read the name aloud.

"I knew it…" Brendan muttered under his breath, though still loud enough for me to hear.

The hooded man nodded, "He knows his chance of gaining the throne is nonexistent, that's why after he took over the Dark Sect here, he's been consolidating power in order to overthrow the current dynasty to establish his own. No one would support a powerless prince and since the crown prince has most of the Major Sect's acknowledgement, he can't compete with him openly and win either."

"Master Lin mentioned about the monsters, yes?" The other one asked. "He was planning to use them to stage a coup in the palace. We did not want that to happen so in order to fight him, we wanted to move Dong's forces here to have the two armies wipe each other out."

The city lord gaped, "What? That's… That's not what you told me! You said the army of Dong will take over this place and I will be minister!"

The Dark Sect Practitioner turned back to regard him with a slight tilt of his head, "You are but a pawn, nothing more. You were not meant to live beyond the first phase of the war."

"You… You bastards!"

The city lord charged towards him with his sword raised.

The hooded man merely pointed a finger at him, a streak of black lightning leaping from the tip of his finger to blast the city lord's torso. He didn't even have time to scream before he instantly combust into flames, the fire ominously black in colour that consumed him within a blink of an eye.

I coughed to get their attention, "So if your Sect is not here to spread destruction and chaos. What is the real goal of your Dark Sect then?"

"That is something I can't talk about now… Our Sect Master would want to speak with you when the time comes," He tossed the scroll towards me.

I caught it in my hands, raising my eyebrow at him, "You're not expecting me to do your work for you right?"

He shook his head, "Not at all. Just thought you might want to see who is there. You should be careful of who you trust after all and we're giving you some hints on that."

I gestured to their dead companion, "No revenge for your colleague?"

"Not like we can do anything about it even if we want to."

"The Revenant Daemons Sect?"

"They were the ones in charge of the mines, not that they are needed anymore."

"Who killed them?"

"We are just as clueless about that as you are."

"And the Dong's army?"

"Not going to happen with this city lord dead. Not like we need them anymore anyway."

I thought for a moment before placing the scroll into my storage ring, "Fair enough, go on then. I still got my eye on you two though, so do something bad and I'll be there to cut your heads off, capiche?"

"Yes. I'm glad we can solve this issue civilly, Master Lin."

I made a shooing motion with my hand and the two of them were quick to leave, not even bothering to take their colleague's corpse with them.

Brendan looked up at me, "Master… Isn't this a bit too trusting of them? They're Dark Sect after all."

I gave him a mischievous smile, "And that's why I've got two tracking inscriptions on them. Relax, I've got it covered. Now I'm really curious who else is in the Dark Sect other than the prince… Let's go back and look this over a cup of tea eh? I think I've got my share of drama here already."

"As you wish, Master."

Both of us left the town hall, stepping over the guards that were still groaning and rolling around outside without minding them. They're someone else's problem now.

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