"Hiss—"
The soldiers outside, ordered to enter the nightclub, all sucked in a sharp breath.
The entire nightclub now looked like a slaughterhouse—limbs and torsos were strewn everywhere.
The thick stench of blood, the cloying reek of lust, and the lingering odor of alcohol mixed together until the place smelled like someone had set off a stink bomb.
Many of the greener soldiers rushed to a corner and began retching the moment they stepped inside.
When he finally managed to steady himself, he saw a severed head at his feet staring straight at him.
"Aah!"
The soldier jerked upright in fright and stumbled backward, caught by the man behind him.
"Watch it."
The soldier behind him sounded faintly annoyed—he was making too much fuss.
"B-but… o-over there…"
The rattled soldier tried to say there was a head over there, but the man behind him cut in, "A head, right? There was a fight here—of course you'll see heads."
As he spoke, he pointed in several directions.
"Look—over there, there, and there. Plenty more heads, aren't there?"
The startled soldier followed his finger and saw several heads lying in pools of blood.
Still, no matter how you rationalized it, the place was terrifying.
He had seen killings before, but nothing like this.
"You just haven't seen enough," the soldier behind him said, patting his shoulder.
"Bro, you're really unfazed?"
"I used to be on the border, always clashing with the Hongsi or Black Rock Empires."
"Ah, that explains it."
Slaughter on the battlefield was far worse than this.
When the soldiers reached the basement, the sight inside stunned them anew.
"You lot—get these people out and find somewhere to clean them up."
Seeing the troops arrive, Deputy Corps Commander Kane barked his orders.
Once the soldiers had come down, Jing Yuan led his group out of the basement.
The space was cramped with so many people inside, and the floor was covered in filth—utterly revolting.
After coming out, he stationed himself beside Lu Li; now only within a meter of her did the nightclub air remain bearable.
Pei Muyun and the others crowded in, treating Lu Li as a walking sachet.
"This stench is unbearable."
Gu Xiao rubbed her temples; she could no longer tell which body was actually smelling the reek.
A biochemical weapon of this caliber was simply too much for her.
So the instant the fight ended she had been first to sprint to Lu Li's side.
But with two bodies, the male one—Jing Yuan—had to stay outside and explain, so he'd gotten the full brunt of the stench.
"Young Master Jing, everything has been arranged."
Once the last captive was led out of the basement, Kane came to report.
"Good. We're heading back; the rest is yours."
"Yes, sir."
After wrapping up, Jing Yuan led the students back into the secret passage, bound for Ryan's villa.
Halfway there, they met Instructor Yang Qian striding toward them, spear in hand, Ryan and Fiyela dangling like dead dogs.
Yang Qian had crippled their cultivation; their auras were now feeble.
"Finished?"
Yang Qian could clearly smell the blood still clinging to Jing Yuan and the others.
"All done," Jing Yuan nodded.
"Then let's head back. Let the White Night Empire bigwigs worry about the rest."
With the matter settled, Jing Yuan's group returned to the hotel while Yang Qian hauled Ryan and Fiyela to the palace.
Exactly what happened next was unclear; they only heard that the White Night Emperor flew into a thunderous rage and a nationwide purge began.
A country-wide dragnet was beyond their help—they couldn't afford the time.
But the capital's sweep continued. After two raids by Star Sea Academy, only a handful of Slaanesh Cultists remained in the city.
Still, as the Academy's temporary rear base, every last Slaanesh Cultist had to be rooted out.
The students had no objection to Wu Lei's order.
A day later.
"Let's move. We've learned enough; the White Night capital is clean. Time to confront that priest."
Right now the spies of both nations have no way to get anywhere near the Hongsi Empire; the intelligence in their hands is limited, so they only know the broad strokes.
If they hadn't stayed behind to help purge the Evil Clan inside the city, they would have set out for the Hongsi Empire yesterday.
Half an hour later, at the White Night Empire's ship hub, the teachers and students of Star Sea Academy were back aboard the radiance.
Outside the radiance, the Emperor and the great nobles escorted them all the way, watching as the starship lifted off.
Moments later the radiance left the hub, climbed to cruising altitude, and headed for the Hongsi Empire.
The radiance was fast; the trip from the White Night capital to the Hongsi Empire took less than an hour.
At superluminal speed the same distance would be covered in an instant, but by law ships are forbidden to go superluminal within a planet's atmosphere or continent.
Besides, for such a short hop it wasn't worth firing up a superluminal jump.
At present the radiance hovered just outside the Hongsi Empire's border.
Through the porthole they could see the entire Hongsi Empire shrouded in pink mist; the closer to the capital, the thicker the fog.
"Open fire."
Wu Lei studied the feed from the probes and gave the order to shoot.
In a situation like this, the people inside were beyond saving.
And, brutal as it sounds, even if some prodigy could resist the corrupting mist, there was no way to extract them.
Rule one when facing an Evil Clan calamity: run with everything you've got—never wait inside the disaster zone for rescue.
Because what arrives might not be rescue but an artillery barrage.
A so-called Evil Clan calamity is the preparation of a grand sacrificial rite to summon a Chaos God's power—or an avatar of that god.
During the ritual's formation huge amounts of psychic pollution are generated.
This contamination rewrites a person's thoughts and perceptions from the ground up, turning them into a devout follower of the Chaos God.
Truth be told, few ordinary folk can withstand such pollution, and even cultivators succumb if exposed too long.
Consequently, in a calamity zone only a handful remain lucid.
Sending legions to evacuate them costs too much; unless the ritual is still in its early, lightly polluted stage, the area is simply shelled into oblivion.
P.S. A lot of readers asked about this, so let me clarify: earlier I didn't have the main cast know about the Body-Forging limit. My thinking was that both study and cultivation are stage-based; Noble Families plan for their kids to learn things only when the time is right. Although Body-Forging is the first realm, the current curriculum doesn't dwell on its limit; advancement comes first. Once they reach the academy the teachers will cover it, so foreknowledge is pointless and would only distract them—each stage has its own tasks.
But as scions of Noble Families they still receive priority training, so I later patched that: even if they don't know the theory, their daily martial drill intensity is set by the family.
Many readers feel that as nobles they ought to know everything in advance.
Here's my take: only those without backing need to hoard such knowledge early, because at this stage you won't hit the Body-Forging limit anyway, so knowing is meaningless. Noble kids have their clan behind them; when the time comes they'll naturally be told, no delay at all, while avoiding divided focus.
Commoners are different—they lack channels and may miss the one chance to learn; whether they ever find out later is uncertain, so they cram everything in just in case.
Rich people still go to college—didn't you have wealthy classmates? Why send them to school instead of teaching business at home? Same logic.
If clans handled everything, the academy genre wouldn't make sense—nobles would never attend; training at home and networking at banquets beats school. Yet I've never seen an academy genre where every student is a commoner.
Advanced college math also starts with stuff taught in middle school; high-credit courses begin from low realms—no contradiction there.