I Become Sect master In Another World-Chapter 179 — When the Silence Reached the Sect

They didn't come all at once.

They leaked.

Through broken windows. Through gaps in shattered stone. Through the air itself.

Raw. Torn. Human.

One soldier's fingers loosened.

His spear slipped free, struck the stone street, and clattered loudly—far too loud in the sudden stillness.

No one looked at him.

Another soldier stood with his sword half-raised, arm shaking so violently the blade rattled against his own armor. His teeth chattered. His eyes were wide and wet, fixed on the doorway like something might burst out at any second.

From the side—

Movement.

More figures stepped out of the smoke.

Not rushing.

Not hiding.

Just appearing.

The soldiers felt it before they fully saw them.

Their bodies began to tremble harder. Shoulders stiffened. Spines locked. A few took unconscious steps backward, boots scraping against stone.

Eyes widened further.

Horror settled in, heavy and suffocating.

Then—

From behind—

Footsteps.

Fast.

Many.

Boots thundered against the street, loud and sharp, cutting through the screams. Orders were shouted—rough, urgent, desperate.

"Form up!" "Shields—now!" "MOVE!"

A hand grabbed a soldier by the shoulder and shook him hard, armor clanking violently as his head snapped forward.

"WAKE UP!"

The soldier gasped, sucking in air like he'd been drowning.

They rallied.

Fear didn't vanish.

It turned.

They screamed back—hoarse, cracked shouts ripping out of their throats as they raised weapons with shaking hands.

They charged.

Steel met flesh.

Blades struck bodies.

The sound was wrong.

Not the clean ring of metal on armor.

Wet.

Dull.

Heavy.

Nearby—

The people saw it.

A chance.

They ran.

Not together.

Not organized.

They fled in broken lines—tripping over rubble, slipping in blood, dragging children whose legs couldn't keep up. Hands clutched tight around small wrists, around cloth, around anything solid.

Smoke burned their eyes.

Ash coated their tongues.

They didn't look back at first.

They just ran.

Then—

One man stumbled.

His foot caught on something soft.

He nearly fell.

He turned his head.

Looked back.

His eyes widened in horror.

Bodies lay scattered across the street.

Not fallen.

Torn.

Armor had been ripped apart like thin tin sheets, plates peeled back and twisted, straps snapped clean. Limbs lay where they had been wrenched free—an arm here, fingers there, a leg bent at an angle no living body could endure. Blood coated the stone in thick layers, not splashed but spread, filling the grooves between tiles, creeping slowly downhill in dark, glistening streams.

The street no longer looked like a road.

It looked like a butcher's floor.

Among the bodies—

They crouched.

Low. Relaxed. At ease.

Eating.

One creature knelt over a soldier whose body still twitched faintly. Its fingers dug into the man's helmet, nails biting through metal and scalp alike. With a sharp, violent jerk, it tore the head free.

The sound was clear.

A wet crack.

The spine snapped audibly.

The creature didn't pause.

It bit into the head immediately.

Teeth crunched through bone, fragments scattering across the stones. Blood poured down its chin in thick streams, soaking into its chest as it laughed—high, broken, delighted. The sound bounced off the ruined walls, sharp enough to cut.

Nearby, another sat hunched over an arm.

It chewed slowly.

Muscle tore with sticky, ripping sounds. Tendons stretched, snapped. It spat a length of bone aside like refuse, the fragment skidding across the blood-slick street, and leaned back in again, jaws working methodically.

No urgency.

No fear.

Just appetite.

The man watching—

His legs gave out.

They didn't buckle.

They failed.

He collapsed onto his knees, hands scraping uselessly against stone slick with blood. His chest hitched violently. Tears poured down his face unchecked, blurring the nightmare before him into streaks of red and black.

"I—" His voice broke. Nothing else came out.

Then a hand seized his arm.

Hard.

Another man stood over him, face smeared with soot and blood, eyes burning with something that wasn't hope—but refusal. His grip was iron, fingers digging in.

"Don't," he said sharply, voice low but absolute. "You can't give up."

The kneeling man shook, sobbing.

"They died," the other man continued, jaw clenched. "They died for you. For all of us."

He hauled him upward, forcing him to stand.

"At least run," he said. "At least try."

The man nodded frantically, tears streaking down his face as terror finally broke into motion.

They ran.

Behind them—

One of the creatures straightened.

Slowly.

Blood dripped from its mouth, thick strands stretching between its lips and the meat below before snapping free and splashing onto the stone. It wiped nothing away. It didn't need to.

Its eyes moved across the ruins—burned shops, shattered bodies, fleeing silhouettes swallowed by smoke.

Its lips peeled back.

A smile.

"Split up," it snarled, voice rough, vibrating with pleasure. "Kill everyone."

The response was immediate.

They scattered.

Some launched themselves upward, claws scraping against stone as they leapt onto rooftops, silhouettes bounding across tiles with inhuman ease.

Others melted into alleys, vanishing into narrow passages where screams followed moments later.

More ran straight into the smoke, voices rising into excited, feral howls that echoed through the streets like a hunt finally unleashed.

Above—

The sky shimmered faintly.

The mirage formation still hung there—perfect, calm, serene—reflecting blue sky and drifting clouds to anyone looking from beyond.

Untouched.

Untarnished.

Inside it—

Blue Stone City screamed again.

Louder.

Wider.

Endlessly.

And the city burned beneath a lie that pretended nothing was wrong.

Dusk settled slowly over the Sanatan Flame Sect.

Not like a curtain dropping—but like a breath finally released.

The sun slid lower behind the jagged peaks, its light spilling across the terraces in long bands of amber and gold. Stone paths that had been hot beneath the afternoon sun now held a gentle warmth. Shadows stretched, soft and unthreatening, curling around pillars and training posts.

The sect was relaxed.

Disciples sat in loose clusters across the courtyards—some cross-legged, some sprawled flat on their backs, arms thrown wide as they stared at the sky. A few rolled their shoulders, stretching sore muscles. Others compared bruises with quiet pride, laughter breaking out when someone winced too hard.

Near the yard, a group passed around a water flask, arguing about whose form had been worse during training. Someone complained about their legs shaking. Someone else claimed that meant it was "working."

Above them, crimson banners stirred lazily in the evening wind.

Life felt… earned.

Comfortable.

Safe.

Then—

Footsteps.

Fast.

Too fast.

They didn't match the rhythm of the sect.

Stone cracked sharply under hurried boots. Gravel scattered. Breath tore through the quiet—ragged, uneven, wrong.

Two figures burst through the outer path.

Hee Ta.

Hee Laa.

Sweat soaked their clothes completely, dark patches spreading across their backs and chests. Their hair clung to their foreheads in wet strands. Dust streaked their faces, cutting pale lines through grime and sweat.

They weren't running anymore.

They were stumbling.

Hee Ta caught himself on a stone pillar, fingers slipping once before he managed to grip it. His chest heaved violently, each breath scraping out of him like his lungs were tearing.

Hee Laa bent forward, hands braced on his knees, shoulders shaking. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and splashed onto the stone below, one drop after another.

Drip. Drip.

Disciples nearby frowned.

Laughter faded.

Luo Chen stood.

"What's wrong?" Wang Tian asked, confusion edging into his voice.

Hee Ta lifted his head.

His eyes were wide.

Too wide.

The whites showed all around his pupils, veins standing out starkly against skin gone pale beneath the grime. His mouth opened—

Nothing came out.

He swallowed hard, throat bobbing painfully, then tried again.

Behind him, Hee Laa straightened slowly.

His hands were shaking.

Not from exhaustion.

From shock.

The mountain breeze brushed through the courtyard, cool and gentle.

It felt wrong.

Elder Liya felt it before anyone spoke.

The shift.

The wrongness.

She rose from her seat in a single smooth motion and stepped forward, placing herself instinctively between the disciples and the outer path. The movement was not dramatic—but it was absolute.

Her hand snapped to the hilt of her sword.

Metal whispered.

"What happened?" she demanded.

Her voice cut cleanly through the courtyard.

The guards didn't answer.

They couldn't.

Hee Ta's arm trembled as he lifted it.

Hee Laa's fingers shook so badly they almost missed their mark.

They pointed.

At the gate.

At the figure standing there.

For a heartbeat, the world held still.

A man stood beneath the arch.

Or what remained of one.

Blood covered him—soaked into his clothes, crusted along his shoulders, streaked across his chest and face until the original colors were impossible to tell. It dripped steadily from his body, dark drops pattering onto the stone at his feet.

One arm was gone.

Not hidden.

Gone.

The sleeve on that side hung empty, torn and soaked through, the edge dark and stiff with drying blood.

In his remaining hand—

He clenched the broken hilt of a sword.

The blade had snapped jaggedly halfway up, metal bent and cracked, stained almost black.

He stood upright.

Barely.

His legs shook with each breath. His shoulders sagged, dragged downward by pain and exhaustion that no mortal body should still be standing under.

The City Lord of Blue Stone City.

The courtyard inhaled as one.

Eyes widened.

Mouths parted.

Someone dropped a training staff. It hit the ground with a dull crack that sounded far too loud.

Cheng Fang arrived at the edge of the crowd with Xu Ran beside him, his usual relaxed stride unbroken, his smile already forming.

"Why are you all standing like you've seen a gh—"

The word caught.

Stuck.

His smile froze halfway across his face.

His eyes found the man at the gate.

The blood.

The missing arm.

The broken sword.

Cheng Fang took a step back without realizing it.

His throat worked, but no sound came out.

Beside him, Xu Ran stepped forward.

She is adjusting the sword at her waist, her expression light, calm smile on her face.

"What's going on?" she asked. "What are you loo—"

She lifted her head.

Her voice died.

Her eyes locked onto the figure at the gate.

Onto the man she had known her entire life.

Her father.

Her body froze completely.

Not a tremor.

Not a step.

Just stillness.

Her smile shattered.

It didn't fade—it broke, like glass dropped onto stone.

Her eyes widened slowly, painfully, as if her mind refused to accept what they were seeing.

"…Fa—father?"

The word came out thin. Fragile.

The City Lord's head lifted slightly at the sound.

His eyes found her.

For a moment, something softened in them.

He took one step forward.

Stone scraped beneath his boot.

"Everything… destroyed…" he whispered.

Then his strength failed.

His knees buckled.

His body pitched forward.

Xu Ran screamed.

The sound tore out of her—raw, unrestrained, carrying every shred of terror and disbelief in her chest. She ran, the world blurring around her, and dropped to her knees just as his body hit the stone.

He fell face-first.

Blood spread beneath him.

She grabbed him immediately, hands slipping in blood as she tried to lift him, her arms shaking violently as she pulled his head into her lap.

"Father—father—talk to me—please—"

Her voice broke completely.

Tears poured down her face unchecked, splashing onto his blood-soaked hair and armor.

"Who did this?" she sobbed. "Who—who did this to you—"

Cheng Fang was there in the next heartbeat.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her upright as her body shook, his own hands trembling as he anchored her.

Elder Liya was already moving.

She crossed the distance in a blur, fingers diving into her storage pouch. A jade vial flashed in her hand.

"Quickly," she barked, voice sharp and commanding, "feed this!"

She tossed the pill without hesitation.

Cheng Fang caught it on instinct, pried the City Lord's jaw open, and pressed the pill past his lips.

A faint emerald glow spread across the City Lord's body.

Cuts sealed partially. Bleeding slowed. His breathing steadied—just enough.

His eyes fluttered open.

Just a slit.

"They're…" he rasped, voice barely more than air. "…coming…"

Then his eyes rolled back.

His body went slack.

"Take him to the medicinal garden!" Elder Liya shouted. "Now!"

Cheng Fang nodded, jaw clenched, and lifted the City Lord carefully, cradling him as he rose.

"Call Elder Wan," Liya snapped. "Immediately!"

She turned sharply.

"If Elder An Ning is available, call him too. If not—gather everyone. Every disciples, Elder Yaochen. Try to contact Elder Lin Shu. Gather everyone."

People moved.

Running.

Shouting.

Orders flew across the courtyard, sharp and fast.

Someone sprinted toward the alchemical halls.

Another raced toward the elders' quarters.

The peaceful hum of dusk was gone.

Replaced by urgency.

Elder Liya remained where she was for a heartbeat longer, her hand tightening around the hilt of her sword.

Her gaze lifted briefly toward the sky.

"…Master," she murmured, voice low and tight, "something terrible has begun. Return quickly."

Far away—

The mirage over Blue Stone City finally vanished.

Like mist burned away by sunlight.

The sky cleared.

And from the ruined city—

Figures rose.

One by one.

Then dozens.

Then more.

Dark shapes lifting into the air, mouths open in wordless screams that carried across the wind.

They flew.

Straight toward the mountain.

Toward the Sanatan Flame Sect.

The sky itself seemed to recoil.

And the distance between peace and slaughter began to close.

To Be Continued…