Chương 102: Dao Grotto

I kinda overspent my meager resources for the Frozen Pavilion, both with expensive pills and even a few high Tier Formations. Did I regret it? Not one bit! Money comes and goes, but love is eternal. Right? Tian! I was talking about you... idiot! Did any of those women in your life shed a single tear when you died by the sword? I bet a few old hags just sighed, and shed a few drops of wine. The rest were long dead, since they never advanced far enough to match your lifespan.

How could they, if you never cultivated your flower garden? Another night, another raid. This time I had Quinhue, with Sakura and Nana acting as my Dark Fairies. I tapped on my metal mask.

"Nightfall... in 30 seconds!" I declared with my Dark Lord voice. Quinhue took point, advancing into the Tang Clan's compound, her clawed gauntlets gouging eyes and ripping out spines with precise moves. Nana seemed a bit sick, which was understandable for a librarian. She has read about clan massacres, but never been part of one. Sakura, acting as Two and second-in-command, held her hand to calm her down.

"23, 22..." she whispered, keeping count for her own part. Nana was Four, which meant... walk around and try to look scary. I vanished in shadows and went ahead to seek out the opposition. Clan Tang should have at least 3 Venerables, possibly more. At least one of them was suspected to be a demonic cultivator, for the simple reason that they practiced slavery in this clan. I also had a feeling there was something suspicious with how many female guards were deployed in their slave camps.

Perhaps a Dark Mother was in charge at the very top, unlike all other clans ruled by a Patriarch. For once, the outer perimeter was cleared without causing alarm, which meant either they sucked as security, or that Quinhue was actually good at her job. As the Nightfall timer reached zero, Sakura and Nana moved forward too, and five Venerables appeared inside a special Formation imbued with all Five Elements.

With a smirk, I stepped behind the Venerable guy on the Fire plate and snapped his neck, storing his body in my ring. Pef called it being inside their decision loop, but for me it was simply having fun with low realm noobs.

"Three Dark Fairies... most likely the same ones that struck the Zhan clan a few months back. One is strong, the rest... not so much." an older Tang Ancestor pointed out, with a finger towards One. Dark Fairy One sighed, and looked around for help.

"Three, we're in trouble..." she noted with a calm voice. You should panic right now, my sweet fairy. Being ice cold was cool, but what if I'm not around?

"Mistress, what do we do now?" another Venerable asked with a respectful voice.

"I want to know where my dark daughters are. Until today 27 Tang women have gone missing, and 3 more are confirmed dead. You will get an easier death, if you tell me, Dark Fairies." a woman's voice emerged from the clouds. Dark Fairy Two looked up.

"Lies. She does not intend to keep those words." she spoke with her special Dao insight. I thought for a moment, but my impostor game was about to be revealed very soon. I took a step back and vanished, taking the Fire plate with me. The Five Elements Formation distorted and cracked, allowing the fairies to engage in battle with the remaining Venerables. Nana had the Tier 4 sword I gave her, compensating for her lower strength. Instead, I entered the main compound and started looking around for clues.

The surface grounds seemed clean, too clean. No rape beds, no torture chambers... even the slave quarters seemed clean and well maintained. Who did that? If you're going to sacrifice your morals to keep slaves, why give them clean quarters? Underground then. People always buried their secrets. Something that even Pef's world did, with their missile silos and command centers beneath mountains. I stopped in midair, as a servant girl tried to look around me, but her reaction speed couldn't match a Nascent Soul.

I grabbed the woman and flipped her eyelids over. Runic tattoo. So curious, right? I could avoid the sense of other Venerables, but a Qi Gathering servant could detect me with that tattoo. Again, I snapped her neck and stored the body in my ring. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Only Sages with their internal worlds could store living people, and not for long.

Dao Kings could hold a small village permanently, which they often did to hide their valuable descendants until they were ready to come out. A Quassi-Emperor could hold many more people, which is why they served as Inner Sect repositories and rarely left their main sect. Training inside a dense-qi Dao Grotto, with an Inner Avatar as a mentor was quite an honor for any Core Disciple at Saint Realm or higher. It also required taking a long loyalty oath, losing most rights as a human being.

So not a huge honor, in hindsight. Luckily for Tian, he was a fan of wandering around and fighting people, so being locked up inside a Dao Grotto wasn't his deal. To think a Sword idiot would avoid such a sweet honey trap... wait! A Dao Grotto? On this continent? The remains of an old Sage who didn't perish in the cataclysm? No, any Sage would be long dead after a few millions of years. But... what happens to that inner world when someone dies? Tian! Why do you shrug? It's important knowledge!

Even if you only kept a hundred spare swords and extra whetting stones in your world... damn sword idiot! Yes, you can obtain anything you need with a good sword and that level of skill, but it's anything except knowledge. It's a wonder the Bodhi Lotus even chose you to reincarnate at all. Or perhaps it made sure you never ascended as an Immortal Emperor. Can't even imagine what that idiot would do with Immortal powers. Slice infinite worlds to bits, just to sharpen his sword even more, probably.

Still roaming around, I found the main clan hall, and an exquisite woman sitting on a phoenix throne, made of gold and floating on soul wings.

"You must be the Dark Mother, right?" I asked on a hunch. The woman rose her eyebrows like a pair of phoenix wings.

"And who might you be, a Dark Lord perhaps?" she guessed at random. My metal mask and dark robes were not a clue.

"Someone like you should kneel and beg for her life, but I guess you have the Dao Grotto as a secret weapon, right?" I wondered with a curious tone. Her purple eyes turned wide, experiencing fear after a long time of feeling in control.

"How? There is nothing to give away..." she whispered in surprise, confirming my suspicion. I slashed with Tian's Sword Intent, and the conceptual power cut into walls and people, sparing only the women, thus my Dark Fairies were safe. Tian did have a soft heart for women, and even perfected a 'Mercy strike' for this exact purpose. It was more of 'spare the women to dip my dick into them' move, but it worked for other purposes too.

The Dark Mother blinked, then a second later she was on her knees, banging her forehead on the floor.

"Please spare my life, Dark Lord! I had eyes, but didn't see Mount Tai!" I glanced at my two fingers, and blew a soft breath on them. There was no burned gunpowder residue to blow away, but Pef was right. It did look cool, even if I had to reveal a higher-grade Sword technique than available on this continent. My Dark Fairies flew into the room, a bit confused and a bit injured too, not by me though. Damn it, they all sucked so bad... at fighting, I mean. Sucking dick, pretty good... no complaints there.

"Dark Lord... we have let you down. We got trapped, and couldn't even defeat four weak Venerables." Dark Fairy One said and bowed in shame. Dark Fairy Two coughed gently.

"One did better than that, Dark Lord. But yes... we need more training." Dark Fairy Four stored her Tier 4 sword in the storage bag, and walked beside me to examine the prostrated prisoner.

"A Dark Mother, they are real?" she asked in surprise.

"Stand up, woman! And take us to this grotto. Wait, first read this oath." I held out a paper with my favorite slave oath. It was not unbreakable, especially not if demons were involved, but for most things it was very useful.

"Yes, Dark Lord!" the woman said and then recited the oath directly. I waited for something to break inside her, but this beautiful Dark Mother was not under control or compulsion. A minute later we reached an underground tomb with numerous Tang Ancestors, one of which had to be the Founder. And I know because the corpse was perfectly intact, and this Dao Grotto could be entered by dipping a finger into her Great Sage mouth. Could have been worse, if the entrance was via her ass, for example.

One after another, we arrived inside the Dao Grotto, where a training camp was established. Hundreds of rape beds with men on them as well.

"What is this depravity?" One muttered and flicked her ice, turning all captives into ice dust.

"It's my ancient cultivation method called: Yang funneling beneath my heels and lifting me to Heavens. And I was so close to Soul Transformation..." the Dark Mother complained as her dreams turned to dust. I sighed inward.

"Do you have a set of ancient memories, Dark Mother?" I asked on a whim. The woman bowed, hiding her eyes.

"... Only fragments from our Founder, Dark Lord. Back when the world was whole, and the Stairway to Heaven still existed."

"Four, paper and start writing the old histories. This Dao Grotto is pretty much a self-contained Concealed space, established by an ancient Great Sage. Equivalent to a Tier 6 Formation or so. If the Sage was alive, the qi density here would be 100 times more than outside." I said while walking around to explore. Most of the old stuff was worn out, since entropy was not stopped by a dead Dao Grotto. A living Sage could counter it with her qi and Dao insight, but it was not the case here. Quinhue stepped beside me.

"How valuable is this?" she asked directly to the point.

"Right now, not much. But if you have something to hide... it depends on how valuable that it. Nobody on this continent can detect what's in here. Nice, right?" I said with a cute smile. Quinhue glanced at a free building, full of sex beds.

"I can think of some uses for this place..." she whispered and took my hand, while her neck blushed. Oh, my sweet ice fairy. Still so prude. I took out my boyscout bed from my ring, and laid down on it.

"What kind of uses did you think about?" I asked with a teasing smile. Quinhue glanced at the other three women, and sighed.

"Scumbag..." she muttered as she dropped her dark robes on the ground. I grinned wide and glanced at my groin.

"And proud of it." It was good training for my immoral soul.