After Mo Fan finished off the last Su family cultivator, he discovered that the pervert Su Ze had already been killed by Xia An with a single sword thrust.
Mo Fan frowned slightly. He took one step and appeared near Xia An. Looking at the corpse on the ground, his brows creased further, and he felt a trace of displeasure.
Still, it was not quite anger.
“This humble girl pays respects to benefactor!”
Seeing Mo Fan approach, the hatred on Xia An’s face eased a little. She immediately cupped her hands and bowed to him.
Although everything had happened in the blink of an eye, the fact remained that Mo Fan had saved her, and the strength he had revealed also made her wary.
“Did I not tell you to spare his life?”
“Why did you kill him?”
Mo Fan’s voice was rather low. He looked indifferently at Xia An.
At the same time, Xiao Huang led Yu Nian over.
“Benefactor, just now my brother and I nearly died at his hands, so in that moment I could not control my anger and accidentally slew him.”
Xia An took a deep breath, raised her head to look at Mo Fan, and said, “But a man like Su Ze committed every evil imaginable and had lost all conscience. If he did not die, heaven itself would not tolerate it!”
“What kind of man he was has nothing to do with me. I needed answers from his mouth. Now that he is dead, whom am I supposed to ask?”
Mo Fan replied in annoyance, then turned to Xia An and asked, “Your name is Xia An, and you are also from Three Saints Island?”
“Yes.”
Xia An nodded.
“Good. Since you are a cultivator of Three Saints Island, you must know a lot about the Su family?” Mo Fan’s expression softened slightly.
“I do know one or two things about the Su family!”
Seeing that Mo Fan only wanted information about the Su family, the tension in Xia An’s heart relaxed at once.
“Benefactor, this is not the place for conversation. This ship is about to sink. Why don’t we talk once we reach somewhere safe?” Xia An suggested.
“Very well. I also have some questions for you.”
Mo Fan nodded. He watched as Xia An walked to her brother, flipped her hand to produce a small porcelain vial, poured out several red medicinal pills, and fed them to him.
After that, Xia An went to one side and carefully collected the shattered head of the woman from earlier.
“What are you doing?” Mo Fan asked curiously.
“This woman was called Song Die’er, the daughter of Song Renjun, the richest man in Clearwater City. She was also a pitiful soul.
In the past, my Xia family had some ties with the Song family. Since I have seen her here, I naturally have to bring her remains home.”
Xia An spoke with a somewhat low mood, then gritted her teeth and continued, “The Su family now controls the entire Penglai Sacred City. Nearly half of Three Saints Island falls under their rule, yet they grow ever more overbearing and tyrannical. Anyone who does not submit is crushed by force.
Ordinary mortals are fortunate in that they never see the ugly faces of cultivators. Instead, it is we cultivation clans that suffer.
Now my Xia family has been destroyed. The Song family will probably be next.
The Song family has no lack of Core Formation cultivators. How could I stand by and watch them be wiped out?
Therefore, when I return this time, I must expose the Su family’s wolfish ambitions to the public and rally every cultivator on Three Saints Island to unite against them!”
Her words left Mo Fan speechless. He understood perfectly. All that earlier talk had been mere polite nonsense. The real reason this girl was collecting Song Die’er’s remains was to stir up hatred between the Song family and the Su family.
After all, the Song family still had several Core Formation cultivators.
Though he found Xia An’s scheming rather deep, Mo Fan had no intention of getting involved or interfering.
He was destined to be enemies with the Su family, but he was also well aware that the Su family possessed Nascent Soul cultivators. Mere Core Formation experts could never oppose them.
In Mo Fan’s view, Xia An’s plan was no different from suicide.
Soon afterwards, Xia An released a ship from her storage bracelet. Mo Fan’s group of three followed the Xia siblings and left the sinking vessel.
Before long, they watched the great ship disappear beneath the ocean. Only then did the five of them use mana to propel their new vessel towards Three Saints Island.
During the journey, Mo Fan learned about the background of the Xia siblings and also gave a simple account of his own trio’s origins.
Naturally he did not say they came from the Hundred Thousand Mountains. Instead he claimed they were from the Divine Domain, but had been ambushed by demon cultivators on the way and ended up lost on the vast sea.
Whether the Xia siblings believed his fabricated story mattered little to Mo Fan.
What mattered was that he obtained a lot of useful information from Xia An.
The Xia family had originally been one of the great clans of Three Saints Island.
If the Su and Wang families represented the first tier of powers, the Xia family had been the leading force of the second tier.
Mo Fan also learned that Three Saints Island was enormous. Though called an “island”, its land area was actually no smaller than the Southern Border region.
This naturally meant there were many cities on Three Saints Island.
Almost all of these cities, however, were controlled by the various cultivation clans.
Furthermore, although the island had countless mortals, no secular dynasty had ever arisen. All mortals were governed by the lord of whichever city they lived in.
Among the many cities, three stood out as the grandest and were known as the Sacred Cities.
These three Sacred Cities were Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou.
This immediately reminded Mo Fan of the immortal islands from the myths of his previous life.
“Could this world be connected to the world of my previous life?”
Mo Fan murmured inwardly. He was not sure if it was just his imagination, but he kept feeling that many things in this world corresponded to the myths and legends he knew from before.
At the same time, Xia An told him that the reason these three cities were called Sacred Cities was also tied to an ancient legend.
It was said that the three Sacred Cities had extremely ancient origins that could be traced back to the primordial era.
Each Sacred City supposedly concealed the secret of ascending to immortality, so ever since primordial times they had been coveted by every major power.
In order to seize the Sacred Cities, the various forces of Three Saints Island often slaughtered one another.
Yet a thousand years ago, the three Sacred Cities were finally occupied by three overwhelmingly powerful clans.
These clans were the Su family, the Wang family, and the Bai family.
That had been a golden age. Each clan had produced a Sage (in truth, a Spirit Severing cultivator). It was at that time that the name “Three Saints Island” became permanently fixed.
During that era the three clans stood united, unrivalled for a time. Across the entire Nine Provinces they were regarded as a holy land that attracted both human and demon cultivators to come and pay homage.
Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, a war later erupted between the human race and the demon race, turning Three Saints Island into a hellish battlefield.
Because the Bai family belonged to the demon race, they were jointly attacked by the Su and Wang families and ultimately fell apart.
The Su and Wang families were also gravely wounded by the conflict. Not long afterwards, the Spirit Severing ancestors of both clans passed away in seated meditation.
From that point on, Three Saints Island once again descended into chaos and strife.
