Awakened: The Spirit King!

Two sturdy and heroic-looking horses carrying their masters were rushing their way towards the mountains on the horizon, above which were thin and somewhat transparent blue clouds and a brightly shining full moon.

Blue Moon City was a few hundred miles away from Cloud City.

Four mountains surrounded it, forming a natural defensive terrain so terrifying that twenty years ago when 50000 outsiders tried to invade the city, Duan Yi, with only 15000 soldiers, not only thwarted their plans and slaughtered forty thousand of their soldiers while losing 3000 of her own, but also chased them an entire 350 miles away from the city where they met their ends at the hands of the troop of the Cloud Lord.

Duan Yi was the sister of the emperor's third concubine and the maternal aunt of the seventh princess of the Glorious Sun Empire.

On top of that, she was once the only female general in the army.

However, after earning outstanding accomplishments in the war, she became the only female city lord in the entire empire!

"The smell of blood reeking out of you has only gotten stronger instead of diminishing. I am afraid the people we might come across on the road and passerby will mistake you for a demonic cultivator and evade us like we are some kind of plague. The soldiers stationed at the entrance might mistake us for evil-doers and attack us. We need to do something about the smell on your body.

How about you partake in a soul-cleansing ritual after we reach the next station?" Xie Yang, who looked majestic while riding his steed, was a bit concerned about his stepbrother, who was experiencing mild killing intent corruption.

Xie Ye gave him a calm look as if the person soon to descend into madness wasn't him but someone else's ghost.

"Are you worried about me giving in to my demons?" Xie Yang met his eyes and nodded. If he weren't worried about him, he wouldn't have what he said. Soul-cleansing was a ritual that people with immense killing intent would undergo each time they felt like they would give in to the devil's whisper and commit a massacre. Xie Ye continued, "If so, you don't need to be concerned about it.

I have a unique constitution that helps me deal with the adverse effects of killing intent. And there's more to it than that. Each time killing intent fails to corrupt my soul, the unique effect of my Constitution activates to increase my cultivation. The scent coming out of me may be similar to that of a cultivator falling into corruption.

Still, unlike one, I am not in pain, nor is my mentality crumbling ill, and sooner or later, the smell will disappear."

"I see."

Xie Yang turned silent.

He has noticed that Xie Ye was way different than a normal spiritual cultivator, but he didn't dare make assumptions.

However, after hearing what he said, Xie Yang confirmed his guesses.

'Either Xie Ye is not only a human, or the Way of Heaven has conspired with the Celestial Spirits of the Divine Academy and the Immortal of the Heavenly Court to introduce a new Divine Physique to the humans of the mortal realm, one that came into being during my absence.'

Way of Heaven was the consciousness of the spirit realm, and Xie Yang was confident that it had survived the calamity ten thousand years ago as the spirit world was still whole and not missing any realm.

The celestial spirits were souls who came into being in the spirit realm and gained enough merits through punishing evil spirits and guiding good souls to the sea of reincarnation to become celestial. Meanwhile, ancient humans had established the heavenly court. It followed the Way of Heaven but wasn't too inferior to it.

It accepted celestial spirits and immortals, which were humans who had transcended their limits and ascended to the spirit realm from the mortal realm as its members.

Ten thousand years ago, there wasn't any human cultivator with a physique that allowed them to not only thwart the corruption of killing intent but also benefit from it.

Thus, Xie Yang was certain that either Xie Ye wasn't a human but a crossbreed between a human and a spirit or that he was lucky enough to be born with a new type of divine physique.

As for what he truly was, Xie Yang didn't care.

He had his secrets, but neither his father nor this stepbrother of his voiced out his abnormalities.

Even after telling his father the truth, he treated him the same.

Xie Yang, too, wanted to keep his relationship with his stepbrother the same.

Xie Ye being a cross-breed or the owner of a new physique didn't matter to him.

Xie Ye was good to him and the people of his father's land, so Xie Yang took him as a good guy, not some cross-breed, which was a creature of misfortune many people hated, and some killed them on sight.

Xie Yang wanted to be good to him too.

Since the moment Xie Ye treated him like his young master, his troubles have become Xie Yang's troubles. If he turned out to be a cross-breed, a harbinger of bad luck, Xie Yang would still proudly stand by his side and protect him from harm.

"Young master, are you feeling alright?" Xie Yang, the chatterbox, was silent for too long, causing Xie Ye to worry about him.

Xie Yang beamed towards Xie Ye to show him that he was fine before saying, "Brother, it's your fortune to have such a miraculous gift. Use it well, but don't abuse it. Killing intent isn't a good thing. The further you stay away from it and the more it is in your control, the better it is for you and those you care about."

Both brothers knew what happens when one invites killing intent into their heart.

"En."

Xie Ye took his advice seriously.

The road they took wasn't only a place where crows mourned and trees wilted but also an area inhabited by fierce spiritual beasts, evil spirits, and wild animals.

Three minutes after their last & serious talk that revealed a few secrets of Xie Ye to Xie Yang, low-level evil spirits took advantage of the darkness, jumped out of the roadside, and pounced at them.

They weren't way above Xie Yang's level, but their stealth was so strong that they escaped his notice.

Xie Ye noticed them, though, and before they could reach near their steeds, he raised his hand and opened his palm wide. Blinding brightness filled their eyes as blue bolts of lightning burst out of his hand and crashed on them.

Each shadow spirit struck by his lightning turned to dust, dying a pitiful death.

The one that luckily survived Xie Ye's casual assault wanted to pounce at Xie Yang. So Xie Ye fired at it multiple lightning bolts, eradicating it.

After that incident, they didn't meet any more trouble on the road.

When the dazzling view of a bright road with many golden lamps passing from in between two mountains and going into the city entered their sight, Xie Ye warned, "We're about to enter Blue Moon City, which the Duan Family rules. We are on good terms with them.

Master has helped her many times in the past, and he was also the hand behind establishing a trade route and a route for military reinforcement between the two cities. She is eternally grateful to Master, but with time people's hearts change.

And this statement is true for her as she is in cahoots with the royal family, and her sister is in the palace and under the Empress, whose family is one of the empire's pillars and not on good terms with the ancient Xie Family. It will be good for us to deal with our matters quietly and leave the city as soon as we are done."

Xie Yang replied, "I will try not to get in trouble with anyone with the Surname Duan."

As they neared the city, Xie Yang asked, "Why are you sure that she will want to bite the hand that fed her?"

"I have some insider information and know that Duan Yi had shaken hands with the Royal Family and choose them over Master and the Xie Manor."

Xie Ye started explaining the political situation of the empire to Xie Yang.

While the meritorious deeds Duan Yi had performed for the empire were many and some impressive enough to put men twice the size of her to shame, the emperor wouldn't have conferred her the title of Lord of Blue Moon if he didn't favor her unique sister.

The Emperor used to favor his third concubine so much that he had spent more than a hundred spring nights with her, and there were rumors of him keeping her in his inner chambers for two years.

One must know an emperor's inner chamber was a forbidden place, and no one but the emperor could enter it as he liked.

Even the emperor's most trusted eunuch, who had accepted the emperor as his master when he was four years old and was also the head of the royal guards, didn't dare enter without his master's permission!

The position of the third concubine was very high in the palace because the emperor favored her.

Even the Queen Mother, the Empress of the Glorious Sun Empire, didn't dare find trouble with her.