Monster Paradise

“Buried Heaven, your successful unification can be considered something that we haven’t managed to achieve. That’s awesome!”

“You’ve become a Lord today—after this, you’ll soar to new heights!”

“Congratulations—let’s have a celebration party when we return to headquarters!”

…

The six Blood Sickle members immediately hastened forward to congratulate Buried Heaven.

Seeing that Buried Heaven was surrounded by Blood Sickle members, Lin Huang did not join them. Instead, he waited till they had finished chatting, and Buried Heaven was making his way over before he delivered his congratulations, grinning.

“Congratulations, boss Buried Heaven, for succeeding in your unification and becoming a Lord! Don’t forget to protect me, boss.”

“You little rascal…” Buried Heaven smiled and scrutinized Lin Huang for a while. He noticed the anomaly in Lin Huang’s aura as well but was still able to vaguely sense his combat strength. “Given the current progress of your cultivation, it won’t be too long before you’re at this level.

“Don’t rush into things after achieving ninth-rank. Build your foundation and only break through when you’re confident,” Buried Heaven added, “I have a feeling that your ability might far exceed mine after you become a Lord. When that time comes, it won’t be me protecting you anymore.”

Clearly, Buried Heaven had no idea that a Lord had attempted a stealth attack outside his God Territory earlier, nor was he aware of Lin Huang’s true ability. He genuinely thought that right now, he could protect Lin Huang.

The expressions on the faces of the six Blood Sickle members were rather odd. In their minds, they were thinking that this young fellow’s background was much more complicated than Buried Heaven had imagined. He had an Almighty above lord-level protecting him. Why would he need the protection of a low-level Lord who had just elevated?

Lin Huang did not intend to reveal his abilities for the moment. He nodded with a smile. “Alright, when I become a Lord in the future, I’ll protect you!”

The two of them chatted for a little bit before Buried Heaven was dragged away by the Blood Sickles for the celebration party. They invited Lin Huang along as well.

Initially, Lin Huang wanted to decline since he was not familiar with the Blood Sickle members. However, after giving it some careful thought, he realized that nobody had mentioned the Lord’s attempted attack earlier. He felt that he should find some time to tell Buried Heaven about it.

The Lord had attempted to attack during Buried Heaven’s unification, but this did not mean they would not try again after Buried Heaven’s elevation to lord-level.

Everyone went through the dimensional portal and returned to Blood Sickle’s Shelter right away.

However, everyone sensed something odd right after they went through the dimensional portal.

The guardian half-step Lord’s aura was gone. Not only that, there was no trace of any life force in Death Sickle’s headquarters.

Lin Huang did a sweep with Divine Telekinesis. Everyone in Death Sickle’s headquarters was dead!

Buried Heaven and the six Blood Sickles looked grim. Evidently, they had just discovered the situation at headquarters.

Buried Heaven vanished right away in a flash. The next instant, he appeared in the cultivation room on the highest floor of headquarters.

Lin Huang and the rest hurriedly followed suit.

Subsequently, Lin Huang saw a middle-aged man quietly sitting on a meditation cushion in the cultivation room. His head was sunk low, and any signs of vitality were completely absent.

Lin Huang immediately identified the man; he was one of the seven Blood Sickle members, Sun Zhan of the Heavenly Ape Tribe.

According to the information Death Sickle had made public, Sun Zhan was a combat cultivator and the powerhouse with the most powerful physique in Death Sickle. Of course, this was based on the rankings before Buried Heaven had elevated to lord-level.

“Old Sun!” The Blood Sickle members exclaimed involuntarily.

“Don’t get close yet. Check with Divine Telekinesis to see if someone’s left any sort of booby trap on him.” Lin Huang immediately stopped them, seeing that they were about to hurry forward and lift the body.

It was not that Buried Heaven and the other Blood Sickle members had not thought of this; it was merely that concern had made them lose their heads.

In comparison to Buried Heaven and the rest, Lin Huang was the least familiar with the deceased. In fact, it was his first time seeing Sun Zhan. Naturally, he was also the most vigilant.

The others halted immediately upon hearing Lin Huang’s reminder. They began carefully checking the deceased over with Divine Telekinesis.

They only went forward a moment later after finding nothing amiss.

“There are no traces of battle, and Old Sun doesn’t have any wounds on him,” Gao Ming said after checking the corpse, “It should be that his God’s soul was obliterated right away by a lord-level powerhouse.”

“It has to be the same group of people as that fellow who launched a stealth attack at Buried Heaven,” Hu Xian’er said venomously.

“What? Someone tried to launch a stealth attack at me?!” Buried Heaven’s expression was full of disbelief.

“During your unification, a Lord tried a surprise attack. He wanted to damage your God Territory. However, Xiu Mu stopped him…” Gao Ming gave a brief summary of what had happened.

Buried Heaven looked at Lin Huang with an utterly astonished expression.

“You severed the Lord’s hand?!”

“I’ve got some special techniques.” Lin Huang did not deny anything, but neither did he admit that he possessed this level of ability.

The six Blood Sickle members were now even more certain about their previous speculation when they heard this. Lin Huang had to have borrowed the technique that an Almighty had left for him.

“Can you show me the hand?” Buried Heaven asked.

Lin Huang immediately retrieved the severed hand and passed it to Buried Heaven.

Buried Heaven took the severed limb and sent his Divine Telekinesis into it. A second later, there was a low grunt, and the hand tore free from Buried Heaven’s grasp. It then charged in Hu Xian’er’s direction as if it had come alive.

However, at that moment, Lin Huang extended a few Divine Telekinesis threads and entangled the hand in them. He then pulled it back forcefully.

“If you dare try moving again, I’ll obliterate you!”

Lin Huang’s battle sword came out of its scabbard once more. The point of the sword lightly rested on the back of the hand and pierced down about a centimeter or so. Blood began oozing from the severed hand. It seemed to be able to understand Lin Huang’s threat and did not dare to move again.

Nearby, Hu Xian’er was still in a state of shock. Earlier, she had thought she was going to die.

The others were staring at Lin Huang in amazement.

At that moment, Buried Heaven spat out a mouthful of blood. He gave Lin Huang an inscrutable glance after coming back to his senses, then said, “This person’s abilities are more powerful than mine. Although he’s also a low-level Lord, he’s definitely consolidated more Dao seals than I have. He’s mastered at least five thousand god sequence chains.”

As to how Lin Huang had managed to sever the hand, Buried Heaven did not pursue the matter further.

“For now, we’ll leave the suppression of the hand to you; in a few days, when we need it, we’ll come to you then.

“From the looks of things now, Old Sun’s death and the attempted attack on me ought to be related. Moreover, it’s no surprise that the same group of people is likely responsible. That’s because it can’t possibly be a coincidence—two such events happening at the same time.” Buried Heaven did not dwell further on the issue of the hand.

“They sent two Lords to suppress Death Sickle. That’s unbelievably brazen.” Boundless Blood’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“The attack might not really be directed at Death Sickle,” Lin Huang could not help speaking up at that point, “They might have a personal grudge against Buried Heaven, or Old Sun and the rest of you Blood Sickle members. Killing everyone in Death Sickle might just have been in passing.

“It’s also possible that they targeted some other Death Sickle members rather than all of you…” Lin Huang thought of the Raiders when he said that.

“Of course, I’m just stating other possibilities; they’re not necessarily correct,” Lin Huang added.

“The things you’ve mentioned are certainly possible,” Buried Heaven was the first to agree.

“Right now, my thoughts on the matter are that we should look at Lords specializing in God’s soul cultivation first. That’s the biggest lead. Secondly, we should look for a Lord who has recently had his hand severed. The hand Xiu Mu severed isn’t something that can be regenerated within a short time. The third thing is that the Lords who attacked might not have come from the God Territory but from somewhere else. We can check the God Territory’s entry records for Lords. Lord-level powerhouses have to report to the authorities when visiting other territories…”

Buried Heaven rapidly sketched out his investigation plan.