Daily life of a cultivation judge

A short silence ensued between the two sides matching perfectly with the dimming light of the moon.

"With what you have seen, do you still think we had a hand in the death of your daughter?" asked Yang Qing as the moon in the sky reflected perfectly in his eyes.

The deep fear that they had before was slowly ebbing away giving the two a bit of a presence of mind to think clearly.

The elderly man couldn't help but smile wryly as he eyed his surroundings.

"A few days ago this was a humiliation. Everything within me was roaring for me to break out of it but now.." 

He paused as a flurry of emotions was reflected in his eyes.

"It feels like a safe haven..." he added with a dejected and terrified look on his face.

His wife seemed to share the same sentiments as the trembling of her shoulders had stopped when they were in the space within the ascendant-grade artifact.

"Are you a holy land?" asked the elderly man with slight trepidation in his tone.

It only took a day for both his and his wife's views to be upended. Everything they saw was enough to break any form of resistance and self-pride they had.

Seeing the blood charcuterie market town was already terrifying enough especially when they felt the energy levels of the corpses that were hung on some of the market stalls, for some of them it was so intense that they felt the urge to prostrate themselves to the corpse itself despite it being dead already.

The show and tell didn't just stop there, as their 'guide' the 'she-devil' Fan Tao took them to the Bestial Churning Sea where they saw a level of ferocity they never thought possible and it was only at the region closer to the shores.

They never thought such a place could exist. They had fought against other spirit beasts at the Deer Mountain Range over the years as they were improving their strength and trying to get the best places within the range, but their fights may have well been peaceful bouts compared to the level of carnage they saw in the Bestial Churning Sea.

Had they been dropped into there, they would have died in less than a day. The spirit beasts that roamed the area were absolutely ferocious. Some had cultivation bases that were weaker than theirs, but their presence and the air of brutality and savagery around them were enough to freeze the souls of the obsidian serpent couple.

They shuddered at the thought of what it would be like if they were dropped into that sea where those savage spirit beasts battled each other to death every single second.

However, the scariest thing they saw was Fan Tao who effortlessly captured those terrifying spirit beasts as though they were helpless chickens and she even instantly devoured a few of them that had taken it upon themselves to attack her.

After the trip to the Blood Charcuterie Market Town, and the Bestial Churning Sea, they were transported to another place that had been quite some distance from the Bestial Churning Sea. 

The area they were taken to was a forest. It was quiet with a sense of tranquility about it and the denseness of the spiritual qi of the area was to the level of being cosmic.

It seemed limitless and dense. Not once in their lives have they ever been to a place so rich in spiritual qi that even the air around it seemed to be filled with ethereal colorful lights. They could even faintly detect numerous dao charms mixed within the spiritual qi. 

However, that purple-blue paradise was the reason they flinched at everything even their shadows.

The forest was home to over a dozen spirit beasts with noble bloodlines. In addition, there were other spirit beasts though they lacked a noble bloodline, they had enough presence to completely make up for it. They didn't lose one iota to those spirit beasts with noble bloodlines which came as a terrifying shock to the obsidian couple, as bloodline suppression and deference were like like an inviolable royal edict to spirit beasts.

They were left in that forest for two days and were only picked up a few hours ago before they were brought here.

They were not attacked while they were there but the presence of the inhabitants of that forest was enough to suffocate them and break them in every which way. They dared not move an inch from where they were left.

They were even too terrified to use their spiritual sense or make use of the dense spiritual qi in the area, afraid that it would trigger the residents' ire. Not that they could easily make use of the spiritual qi in the area. They felt a boundless denseness within it, the kind that it would take them considerable effort and time just to absorb a single wisp, and that was without taking into account the effort that they would need to refine said wisp.

They could feel the gazes of those spirit beasts that carried their thoughts, emotions, and attitudes toward them. There was contempt, mockery, playfulness, and for the majority of the gazes, indifference.

Indifference was the hardest to endure for the obsidian couple as they could somehow see themselves in the eyes of those spirit beasts Their worth was no different than that of the dew on a blade of grass, it was less even.

In the Deer Mountain Range, they could be considered overlords of an area, but here, they were not even deemed worthy to exist. That truth was like a hammer continuously smashing against their minds and souls aiming to break them apart.

They managed to barely hang on the first night. It was on the second day that all hell broke loose and Armageddon descended on the forest.

Dawn of the next day just as the sun rays were warming their way through the dense canopies, a roar that carried the wrath of the heavens thundered around the forest. The roar shook the souls of the obsidian couple that they found themselves down on the ground gripped in fear, screaming and yelling for mercy.

However, their pleas were drowned out by the roar. The roar stopped and its terror was evident for all to see as the skies above the forest seemed to be filled with flames of different colors that looked like they would burn the planet to a crisp.

Immediately after another shattering roar sounded, from a different spirit beast this time, but it carried the same grandeur and terrifying presence as the first one. At this point, the couple had reached their breaking point. The roar lasted just as long as the first one, which was just a few seconds, but might as well have been an eternity to the couple.

After the roar, its lingering effects created a stormy sea above them that contended with the different colored flames.

A third roar sounded, from another spirit beast, but the moment it did, the couple instantly passed out. By the time they came to, they were already in Fan Tao's domain space, being transported back to the branch.

Even now they could still hear those roars within their very being which made them feel like their souls were shattering and their minds collapsing.