At this time, it was the height of summer, with long days and short nights. It wasn’t until eight in the evening that darkness finally fell. Brian Lane waited another hour, and at a little past nine, patted the vampire who always became physically and mentally excited at night, and headed up the mountain. Because the small town was close to Diancang Mountain and tourism was thriving, it remained quite lively even at night. Brian Lane pulled Edward Lewis straight toward the mountain. At the foot of the mountain, they encountered several groups of night hikers. Brian Lane led Edward Lewis along the smaller paths. Both of them had physical strength far beyond ordinary people, and after half an hour, they had already reached the deep mountains where few people ventured. Brian Lane looked around and said, “Alright!” He grabbed Edward Lewis, activated his true energy, and, without touching the ground, soared through the mountains shrouded in endless darkness as if galloping through the sky.

Edward Lewis was carried in Brian Lane’s hand, the wind howling past his ears, black shadows flashing rapidly by. As a newly turned blood clan member, he had never experienced such speed before and immediately found it hard to breathe. Fortunately, the blood clan’s constitution was excellent, and after a brief discomfort, he began to enjoy this extreme sensation.

Brian Lane carried Edward Lewis in a wild dash for half an hour, arriving at a valley. He put Edward Lewis down and said, “We’re here.” Edward Lewis stood firm on the ground, looked around, and saw nothing but vastness. The mountains undulated in the darkness, and it didn’t look like anyone lived here at all. He asked, “Where is it? ...There’s nothing here?” Brian Lane didn’t answer. He spread his palm, and a beam of green light shot out from his hand. The green light flashed fiercely, and under its glow, the peaks on both sides of the valley slowly moved apart, and a new mountain peak gradually rose from the center.

He watched as the mountain peak slowly rose before him, gradually towering into the clouds. Edward Lewis was dumbfounded. All the cultivation sects in the Central Plains would set up some kind of barrier at their mountain gates; otherwise, with their “seclusion from the world” philosophy, wouldn’t they have been pestered to death by ordinary people long ago? But few could match the grand scale of the Divine Sect, which used a “move mountains and fill seas” formation to conceal its gate. After all, the more powerful the formation, the more energy it required to maintain. The Divine Sect of Western Yunnan was powerful enough not to care about sending a few more disciples each day to keep the formation running. Brian Lane could understand Edward Lewis’s astonishment—he himself had been the same when he first came here with his master. He wondered how his master was doing in the Immortal Realm now. Brian Lane’s suit transformed into a blue Daoist robe as green light flowed over it. He tied his ponytail into a Daoist topknot with a wooden hairpin, then took Edward Lewis by the wrist and slowly floated up, drifting toward the mountain peak. At the mountain gate halfway up, two young men in ancient attire bowed to Brian Lane: “Grandmaster Uncle has returned to the mountain.” Brian Lane nodded in response and led Edward Lewis through the gate.

Ahead was a plaza, its bluestone-paved ground polished smooth by countless years. In the center stood a high platform, floating in the air like a balloon, five meters above the ground. Looking past the plaza, rows of blue-tiled eaves stretched in an orderly fashion, continuing all the way up to the mountaintop—even the deep night couldn’t block the vision of creatures in the dark. The Divine Sect’s main headquarters, built up over thousands of years, covered the entire mountain. The Elders’ Pavilion, where the sect’s elders lived, was built at the summit. Though called a “pavilion,” it was actually a large compound, with each elder having their own courtyard. As an elder of the Divine Sect, Brian Lane had his own residence as well.

“The entire Divine Sect has five halls and eighteen branches, with twenty-three hall and branch masters, each a formidable expert in their own right. In addition, below the sect leader, there are four generals, ten Lords of the Underworld, all of whom are at least as powerful as I am. As for elders like me, there are seventeen in the main headquarters, and none are weaker than the others. As for Sect Leader Xuanyuan, he’s probably already at the half-immortal stage—an old man I could never hope to match. Besides that, there are some hidden forces—our Divine Sect has fought against the orthodox cultivation sects for ten thousand years, standing alone against the thirteen orthodox sects. How could we survive without real strength…” Brian Lane introduced the basics of the Divine Sect to Edward Lewis along the way. “Those two kids at the mountain gate just now are my grand-disciples. Hmm, let me think, they’re probably only at the level of your vampire marquises—among the third generation, they’re considered rather weak…” Edward Lewis was startled: Marquises? In a small clan, that would be enough to become the head of the family, but here, they’re just gatekeepers? Then what rank would a prince be here? Edward Lewis thought that even if he became a zombie king, he’d probably still be a rookie here—one that’s already been plucked. Thinking back to when he said, “If the Divine Sect is ever in danger, I can help out,” he broke out in a cold sweat.

Brian Lane led Edward Lewis to his own courtyard, where two young Daoists stood at the door—the youngest of Brian Lane’s seventeen disciples, as the other fifteen had already graduated, leaving the two junior disciples to look after their master. When they returned to the Divine Sect, the sect leader Samuel Grant happened to be away, sparing Edward Lewis a formal visit. Brian Lane instructed the young Daoists to arrange accommodations for Edward Lewis, and called for a sect disciple to catch two wild animals outside the mountain gate for Edward Lewis’s midnight snack. “Rest for now. We’ll talk about everything else tomorrow.”

The sect disciple was quite diligent, catching two wild deer, full of spiritual energy—far superior to the filthy blood of livestock drunk at the foot of the mountain.