Chapter 534: Infiltrating the Iron Mountain Sect

Inside their rooms, the sect elders sat cross-legged on the floor.

Their breathing slowed as their minds sank into meditation.

Spirit essence gathered slowly in the rooms, pulled in from the surroundings as they practiced their own techniques.

But in two of those rooms, something moved in the shadows.

Through cracks in the windows and from the knots in the wooden walls, two strange figures appeared.

Their forms were twisted, made of layered straw and creeping vines shaped like men, with hollow glowing eyes carved from bark. These were a special batch of Aksai’s Sentient Scarecrow Fiends, and they had been watching.

They slipped into the rooms with unnatural grace, their steps soundless.

Elder Hao and Elder Wen sat unmoving, deep in meditation.

The scarecrows didn’t waste time.

They each raised one wooden hand and summoned a wood-element spell. Vines burst from the floors and walls, quickly crawling over the doors, windows, and ceiling.

The room became sealed—isolated completely from the rest of the inn. No sound, no energy, and no presence could escape.

With their other hand, they pressed their palms to the tops of their targets’ heads.

It helped that the dispatched squad of sect elders had their Spirit cultivation capped at the 4th stage of Foundation Building realm and below. They were not the primary fighting force anyway. They were meant to conduct the investigations. As such, Aksai’s puppets didn’t find much trouble in dealing with them.

A sharp jolt of Spirit essence rippled through the air as they cast another spell—one that reached into the core of the targets’ souls and disrupted the connection between mind and body.

Elder Hao and Elder Wen twitched once, but did not wake. Their faces froze in a peaceful expression, unaware of what was happening to them.

The scarecrows then leaned closer, their bark-like fingers touching the elders’ temples. Thin, glowing threads began to pass between them—memories being pulled, read, and copied.

Everything the sect elders had seen, known, or remembered started to stream into the Fiends’ minds. The fiends’ minds were akin to a blank slate save for Aksai’s instructions and programs he had fed into their subroutine neural link fabrics. And at this point, these minds absorbed the sect elders’ memories like dry sponge would absorb water.

After a few minutes, the glow faded.

Then came the final step.

The scarecrows let their bodies dissolve into hundreds of vines. These vines wrapped around the elders like snakes, crawling into their robes, coiling around their limbs, and sinking deep into their skin. There was no pain. No mark. No cry.

The room fell silent again.

A moment later, Elder Hao’s eyes opened. Then Elder Wen’s.

They blinked slowly. But they were no longer themselves.

What sat in those rooms were no longer two proud sect elders, but Aksai’s Scarecrow Fiends—now hiding in plain sight, using the stolen flesh of the men they had replaced. They looked around the room once, then proceeded to cultivate their techniques as if nothing happened.

Everything was in place. The first phase of Aksai’s infiltration into the Iron Mountain Sect had begun.

***

Enchanted Everwood Farm.

The air over the Enchanted Everwood Farm was calm, soaked in the soft hues of eternal twilight. The sky never turned dark here, nor did it become blindingly bright.

Just a perfect shade of dusky purple with streaks of orange and pink, like a dream stretched across the heavens.

Aksai lay on a raised wooden platform in the center of the farm. His head rested gently on Yelia’s lap, her fingers brushing softly through his hair. His eyes were closed, and his face was peaceful—unbothered by the world, completely at ease.

Yelia smiled as she plucked a plump Spirit grape from the vine-draped bowl beside her and held it near his lips.

Aksai opened his mouth lazily and chewed, his lips curling into a faint smile.

“These are sweeter than usual today,” he murmured.

“I added some spirit-rich honeyroot into the soil last week,” Yelia said, her voice low and warm. “The vines liked it.”

Aksai gave a soft hum in response, clearly pleased. He didn’t open his eyes.

Beneath the platform, the mood was far less relaxed.

The woodland demon bears were huffing and puffing in a specially designed training zone. The ground beneath them was covered in glowing symbols etched into the soil, pressing heavy energy down on them.

Their large, furry bodies were soaked in sweat as they moved through complicated martial drills—palm strikes, low sweeps, spinning kicks, all crafted for their big frames.

“Grrraahhh! Master! Just five minutes! My legs are going numb!” one of the bears shouted, collapsing onto all fours.

Aksai had updated the subroutine neural link fabrics he had given to the woodland demon bears, enabling them to talk like normal humans in Dadangar Subcontinent’s native tongue. However, it was not good news for the bears as they could only use this language to complain.

“My claws are cramping!” another whined, shaking out its limbs.

Aksai didn’t even look down.

“No breaks for you,” he said, waving a hand vaguely in the air. “You want to become kings of the forest or just cuddly background demon beasts? Didn’t you say that those human Spirit cultivators were nothing in front of you? Humans train this way. Now walk the talk.”

The bears groaned.

One bear muttered under its breath, “We were happy when we were little, acting like true background beasts.”

Aksai popped another grape and raised his eyebrows.

“Hmm? Did I hear something? Do you want to become even more exceptional by being given an even more rigorous training schedule?”

The bears groaned again, but none of them dared to stop. They rose to their feet, grumbling and growling as they resumed the intense training drills. The air was filled with heavy thuds, the sound of claws slicing through the air, and the steady grind of determination.

Aksai finally cracked one eye open and looked down at them.

He studied their form, their discipline, their stubborn will to push through the pain. He nodded slowly.

“They’ll do just fine,” he whispered.

Then, a pulse of information buzzed gently in the back of his mind. His lips twitched.

“They’re in,” he said.

Yelia looked down at him, curious. “The fiends?”

Aksai smiled wider, still not moving. “Yes. The Iron Mountain Sect elders behaved exactly what I predicted them to behave. Two of their own, replaced and walking right through their gates.”

The Spirit farmer said before smiling to himself. His eyes remained closed, but his mind was wide awake.

Within the dark space of his thoughts, lines of ancient text and diagrams floated in front of him—clean, glowing projections formed by his Neural Link Fabric. The Bloodfiend Manual was now completely scanned and stored.

He didn’t need to flip through old, musty pages anymore. The neural link fabric brought everything to him with perfect clarity.

He had already studied the Bloodfiend Possession Spirit spell in detail. It was the same Spirit spell he had programmed into his Sentient Scarecrow Fiends—one that allowed them to wrap themselves around a person’s body like vines and take over their mind and soul.

The Spirit spell had many risks and had limited applications, but it worked well against distracted or meditating targets. This was why Aksai had not targeted all four. And he had decided to target the sect elders in their moment of weakness instead of attacking them directly or launching such attacks when they first arrived at the scene.

Aksai let the manual scroll forward, guiding it with a simple mental command. The glowing text shifted, and two more Bloodfiend Spirit spells appeared on his internal screen. He paused, reading them slowly.

[ Blood Echo Curse. ]

It was a Spirit spell designed to curse a target by linking a piece of their blood essence to the caster. Once the link was established, anything that happened to the caster’s blood could be mirrored in the target’s body.

If the caster chose to cut their palm, the same wound would appear on the enemy—delayed by a few seconds but just as deep and painful.

“Hmm…” Aksai murmured. “A pain-sharing curse. Could be handy for turning the tables when captured… or for slow torture. I wonder if I can use the Heretic Dao methods and create my own version of the Voodoo dolls?”

The spell required fresh blood and needed to be cast within a certain distance. Not something for long-range fights, but terrifying when used up close. Especially against someone who didn’t know they were cursed.

Aksai mentally saved a copy of the spell structure for later testing.

The next Spirit spell was more sinister.

[ Thousand Veins Binding. ]

This spell worked by sending a thin thread of blood essence into a target’s meridians during battle. If the thread successfully latched on, it would bind itself to the target’s internal flow of Spirit energy.

Over time, the binding would tighten, clogging up the meridians and causing sharp pain, dizziness, and eventually, complete Spirit paralysis.

“The Bloodfiend manuals are truly something else,” Aksai muttered under his breath.

“These aren’t just battle spells. These are tools of terror. I wonder who is the progenitor of the Bloodfiend Arts? And how did the Lakir clan get hold of it?”

Julius Caesar was once kidnapped by pirates—and got annoyed at the ransom amount.

They asked for 20 talents of silver. He insisted they demand 50 because he was worth more. After being freed, he hunted them down and had them executed.