Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Blood-Drinking Alliance Master, Heavenly Gate

Only after the woman threatened death did her family’s elders finally relent, and the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was allowed to remain. Though his wish had at last been fulfilled and he stayed within the Celestial Gate, his days there were miserable beyond measure.

The Celestial Gate was not located on the Crimson Peak Continent, but in a pocket realm far larger than the Azure Sea and Jasper Heaven Domain, vast and boundless, rich in resources. In this world lived not only the people of the Celestial Gate, but also countless commoners and even several small nations.

Within that world, the Celestial Gate held an exalted position, revered by mortals as if it were a divine presence. Each year it received vast offerings, while the small kingdoms relied on its support to continually expand their power.

Yet neither the Celestial Gate nor humankind ruled that world alone. It teemed with fierce beasts and with the indigenous inhabitants of that realm, known as the Ancient Clan.

The Ancient Clan was enormously powerful. In numbers and territory, it far surpassed the lands controlled by the Celestial Gate. They were born stronger than ordinary mortals, towering and formidable, their strength terrifyingly immense.

Without the protection of the Celestial Gate, ordinary mortals would long ago have been slaughtered to extinction by the Ancient Clan.

But after the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master entered the Celestial Gate, the first thing he was asked to do was join the bloody war between the mortals supported by the Celestial Gate and the Ancient Clan.

It was his first time taking part in such a battle, and his opponents were the true rulers of this world in ages past.

If the Ancient Clan were classified according to the cultivation ranks of human martial artists, the comparison would not work at all, because they never cultivated a dantian. Instead, they focused entirely on tempering the body. It could be said that every member of the Ancient Clan was like a human-shaped tyrannosaurus.

Not only were they monstrous in strength, their physical defenses were equally terrifying. A high-ranking Ancient Clansman could, with nothing but the body, beat an inner-altar martial artist into crippling defeat or even death with bare hands.

At first, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master had hoped to earn great merit and win the woman’s family’s esteem. But once he reached the battlefield, those hopes were utterly shattered.

The Ancient Clan’s might could not be summed up in a few words. Even a heavenly-rank expert counted among the strong in human martial circles, yet compared with the Ancient Clan, there remained a vast gap. One heavenly-rank fighter could usually hold his own against a single Ancient Clansman without being defeated, but in time, defeat was inevitable.

The Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was unfortunate enough to be targeted by several Ancient Clansmen, and in the end he lost an arm and a leg. Had the woman’s brother not pitied the thought of his sister becoming a widow and rescued him, he would have been torn into pieces by the Ancient Clan.

After the war ended, he was taken back to the Celestial Gate. Under the woman’s repeated pleas, the elders of her family intervened and reattached his severed limbs. After a period of recuperation, he finally recovered.

But after he healed, no one paid him much heed for a very long time. Even the woman grew somewhat cold toward him, no longer as close as before, and there was a faint sense of distance between them. This filled the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master with rage. He did not wish to be looked down upon, nor did he blame the woman. Instead, he began thinking of how to increase his strength so that the people of the Celestial Gate would regard him differently.

Yet rapid improvement was easier said than done. His existing teachings had reached their limit; there would be no further breakthrough there. If he wanted to advance again, there was only one way: he had to obtain superior profound arts and techniques.

After much thought, he finally steeled himself and asked the woman for help. She loved him deeply, and her coldness was only because she wanted him to improve, so that everyone in her family would come to approve of him. When she saw him at last express his determination, she was naturally delighted and relieved.

Even at the risk of being punished, she brought him into the scripture chamber. Only by threatening death did they persuade the elder guarding the secret treatises of profound arts to make an exception and let them in.

Her family held an extremely high standing within the Celestial Gate, and its collection of profound arts and techniques was vast and varied. It dazzled the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master so completely that he could not bear to put any of them down.

In the end, it was the woman who reminded him that martial skills depend on refinement, not on how many one possesses. Her words struck him like a bolt of lightning, and in that instant he awakened to the truth. Setting aside his reluctance, he devoted himself to finding the profound arts and techniques best suited to him.

It was as they say: everyone is born with strengths of his own. Among the countless texts, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was drawn only to secret methods of dark cultivation, along with various techniques of assassination. He was utterly absorbed in them and could not tear himself away.

Seeing that he had developed a keen interest in dark secret arts, and that the techniques he chose were all about assassination, the woman immediately tried to stop him. But he was already deeply entranced and could not listen. He made every assurance he could that he would cultivate diligently and never bring shame upon her.

In the end, she had no choice but to agree to his request and let him take the books away to cultivate. Still, she strictly forbade him from revealing them within the family, warning that if he did, then even she would not be able to save him.

He immediately swore to the heavens that he would never expose them, and that if he broke his oath, he would willingly take his own life before her.

Thus began the passage of time, flowing like water, while the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master cultivated frantically. During all that time, the woman never came to see him. His food and drink were delivered by others. He was indeed stifled in his heart by her absence, but he did not blame her.

Five silent years passed in the blink of an eye. In all that time she never once appeared, as though she had vanished from the world, while his cultivation soared by leaps and bounds, all the way to the peak of the late inner-altar realm.

After five years of secluded cultivation, he had finally achieved astonishing results. Overjoyed, he emerged from seclusion and went to find the woman, eager to share his great advancement.

But the answer he received was that the woman had been taken away by the founding patriarch of the Celestial Gate to carry out a highly secret mission, and, by cruel coincidence, the Ancient Clan had launched a massive invasion, so she had been dispatched directly to the battlefield.

His cultivation had risen by a whole major realm, and he had also mastered a terrifying dark profound art. His assassination techniques were likewise fully integrated and executed with flawless mastery. On the battlefield, he shone brilliantly, killing several high-ranking experts of the Ancient Clan in succession.

In a short time, his name spread throughout the battlefield. The Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was elated, convinced that this time, the woman’s family would surely recognize him. Then he and his beloved could soar together as a paired flight of wings—what bliss that would be.

The people of the Celestial Gate, especially the woman’s family, were stunned by his astonishing performance. Yet, regrettably, no one had seen how he had slain those Ancient Clansmen, and that only deepened the suspicion.

Particularly among the members of the woman’s clan, his sudden rise inspired great puzzlement. But since no one had witnessed it firsthand, it was not easy to say anything. As for his position within the family, over those five years, most of her clan had come to view him somewhat differently. As for why no one spoke of it, that was another matter.

The war dragged on for a full year, and the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master’s actions were seen firsthand by someone who cared. That witness happened to be a younger member of the woman’s family. He said nothing at the time, offering only a few compliments before leaving.

The Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master gave it no further thought, believing that at last his performance had been recognized. His spirits soared, and he became even more frenzied in slaughtering Ancient Clan experts.

But what he did not know was that after parting from him, that family member returned to the camp and truthfully reported everything he had seen to the clan elders. Upon hearing the news, the elders flew into a rage and were ready to seize him on the spot and abolish all his cultivation.

This move was stopped by others in the clan. Although the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master practiced forbidden profound arts and techniques, in the eyes of outsiders he was still one of their own. To execute him on the battlefield now would likely cause severe repercussions for the family.

After hearing this, the person in charge also felt there was merit in the concern, and so temporarily abandoned the idea, planning to deal with it after the war ended. Thus, throughout that year-long conflict, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master had been in the spotlight, drawing the envy of many.

What he never knew was that his outstanding performance had not only earned him glory, but had also brought great benefits to the woman’s family.

Yet after receiving such honor, the one he had waited for most would never appear again, becoming the lifelong regret that haunted him.

When the war ended, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master returned to the clan in high spirits, hoping to see the person he missed so dearly. But the moment he arrived, all that exhilaration turned to a frozen abyss in his heart.

An order had been issued within the clan: in front of the entire family, his cultivation was to be destroyed, and he was to be expelled. And this was being done only out of regard for the woman.

The Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was utterly stunned, unable to understand why. Only later did he learn that it was because his profound arts and techniques had violated a taboo, and that was why he was being punished.

Once he understood the reason, he remembered the woman’s warning. It turned out that cultivating dark techniques was forbidden within the Celestial Gate, and even across the entire world. Anyone who touched them would be executed on the spot, without inquiry into their background.

The Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master was plunged into despair. He had thought at last he might be respected, only to find himself in a certain death trap the very next moment. Knowing escape was impossible, yet unwilling to lose everything he had struggled for, he clung to the last shred of hope and begged desperately to see the woman one more time.

But the answer he received was yet another thunderbolt that shattered everything. The woman was already dead.

At the dreadful news, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master stood frozen for a long time. At last he threw back his head and laughed like a madman, his face drained of all color, utterly ashen.

The woman’s mother could not bear it. Her daughter had been taken by the rulers of the Celestial Gate to complete a sacred mission with her life, and she had been powerless to keep her alive. But now she was also watching her daughter’s husband face death. The old woman’s heart was wrung with sorrow. She knelt at once before the clan elders and begged them to spare the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master.

She pleaded with the elders to remember the contributions her daughter had made to the Celestial Gate, and to spare his life, not strip away his cultivation, not drive him from that world, and not continue to make things difficult for him.

Her grief touched the others as well, especially the woman’s siblings, who were all moved to tears. They too begged that the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master be spared, lest the woman herself, knowing it from the underworld, could never rest in peace.

In an instant, the whole family was swept into mourning. The elders were moved to compassion, and in the end they decided to spare the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master and merely expel him from that world.

Only then did he preserve his cultivation, waiting for his fate of exile. Upon learning that the woman was no longer in this world, his heart was plunged into darkness.

That very night, the woman’s mother came to see him. With tears in her eyes, she told him something that pierced him to the core: while he had been in closed cultivation, the woman had already been carrying his child.

The reason she had not come to see him was that she feared distracting him and affecting his cultivation. She had wanted to wait until his cultivation made great progress before giving him a surprise. But who could have imagined that calamity would strike? The woman, already pregnant, had been forcibly taken away. After that departure, there was no further news.

Hearing this, the Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master’s heart shattered. He clenched his fists so tightly that his nails sank deep into his flesh. He hated himself for his own helplessness, for being unable even to protect the woman he loved. And now even the child who had not yet been born had perished with its mother. How could he not loathe himself to the bone?

He came to hate the Celestial Gate with equal ferocity. After the woman’s mother left, he departed from his dwelling and used the dark shadowing arts he had learned to make his way to the scripture chamber. There, driven by hatred, he struck down the expert guarding the place and took away a great number of profound arts and techniques. Under cover of night, he fled the Celestial Gate.

He left through the very passage through which the woman had once led him in, carrying with him an abyss of hatred for that world.

Martial Peak, Chapter 68, Blood-Swallowing Alliance Master, Celestial Gate, end of update.