I wish that I could be lucky enough to not have to do these kinds of things in my lifetime. But peering over that wall and seeing the evidence of a packed house that perhaps was even planning for some sort of celebration, there was no getting away from it. They were here. Or at least somebody was and if they weren't doing blood sacrifices or demonic cultivator rights, then whoever her parents had left here would be able to point us in the right direction.

  Cultivators milled around all in red, black and white robes each one perfectly. Quaffed. I was too worried to just say fuck it and go in but the kang's asked me to take a minute and with my girlfriend's help, we were able to easily get on top of the not so tall but little bit thick wall. It was going to be a ridiculous day. I'd already been nearly blown up and just gotten off of an airship and spent days training just to get here to be disappointed.

  Institutions don't care. And then you've got people that believe in them. But it's really just the people behind it that support it and people are fickle. One person might be smart, but a group of people? Group of people is just a bunch of idiots together.

  It never fails.

  Once you get to a certain size of group, it always hurts me to see the ideals of what could have been being torn down. When they were ready, we hopped the fence. From this distance I'd almost reached them with my niece's Saul, but I held back a bit. If anyone was truly powerful and they weren't bailing themselves, I would have felt them.

  She didn't know exactly what realm everyone was because of how far she'd been away and how long she'd been with our group but safe to say, she thought her parents were going to be fourth row if not high third and safe as well.

  My assumption was that they might have some Nascent Soul Enforcers around them. But I was just a simple guy from Southern California trying to make my world into crazy worlds. And doing the best I can all surrounded by the allies I picked up on the way.

  Who would somehow survive this long? Who had become the closest thing with a daughter here I had was ready. It's around who was actually like my daughter's age was still conflicted but she was definitely.

  Questioning so many things about her life at that moment.

  ---

  You see there's a way to live in this world where you can walk into a dinner party. And pretend you know everybody and just try to get by. I wasn't trying to make a fuss but neither was I trying to hide myself.

  I was veiling my power because they didn't need to know what was going on.

  All they could see was me and about the entire squad.

  Nothing to see here, officer, just a casual stroll behind what I was pretending was someone who belonged here.

  No need to check us out. Nope.

  And even then, why would they take notice? These had to be oligarchs.

  We looked like servants, or we looked like somebody who was there on purpose to help. Maybe we were the branch of the family that had arrived late.

  After all, when I put Xiran in the front, all she did was pretend that she was supposed to be here because she'd been here before, and she knew how to do that walk. We could pretend to be her retainers.

  I was so glad that I had taken the time to remove my imperial garb and turn it inside out because of course it was one of those things where you could be inside out.

  The interior which was now the exterior air was pure dark black. And no, I wasn't a ninja. I was just a dude standing in a un could have been ripped out of a fantasy novel. And it wasn't even that far. It was less than half a mile to where the festivities were going on and it just felt like largesse.

  The smell reminded me of the place. I found Lorenzo waiting to die. It was not pleasant, but it was familiar.

  I can only hope that I looked enough like death that I gave him the same one feeling as we got closer.

  Rows of low table were piled high with food that I would never taste.

  It looked like they were celebrating a huge win and I can only imagine that it was something having to do with me. I stressed out a little bit of my power, trying to find the closest person that would dare to impugn upon my honor.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  They were looking like a court that it just ended a session where all the little nobles were squabbling among each other jockeying for positions with little flexes of two or three completely oblivious from the rest of the world as they talked.

  That was good enough for my purposes. The first few absolutely reeked of that demonic cultivator smell but for the first time I couldn't see any facial tattoos and I was beginning to get worried.

  We stopped what felt like a city block away from the furthest out of the family.

  One of them turned to look at us and broke out into a smile upon seeing Xiran.

  "Cousin Xi! So good to see you! It's been so long and..." The man with the silver robe in the dark top bun paused to regard the rest of her companions. "Who are these."

  "Uncle, I must apologize for what I am about to do."

  "Xiran?" Your man looked immediately like he was about to throw up at best. He was a first realm cultivator. But there had to be over four hundred people there and all these people could not have...

  He became violently ill, throwing up all over the ground. Next to him another man stared at her wide-eyed and things were beginning to fall into place.

  For the first time, I felt her aura pushing out as she was straining to manifest a budding nascent soul.

  Honestly, after all the girl had gone through I wouldn't blame her for not instantly leveling this place.

  I just needed to have a chat with the patriarchal matriarch of the family about what exactly their intentions were with their daughter.

  The second person throwing up violently began to cause a murmur in the crowd and more and more members of the little family member reunion decided that was the time that they were going to pop up and say something. Like I understand it if you've traveled for a long way to a family reunion to a gathering where you thought you were going to be safe. But this was not that place.

  If I had to unleash judgment upon these people using Xiran I would. This looked like it would be her story, and I wanted her to write the end.

  None of that appeared to be able to handle what she was putting down, which made me wonder about their allocation of resources.

  It felt like they were all hangers on of some Noble. Another home-grown oligarch, with more money than sense.

  I wasn't going to see a fat noble. I was going to see somebody who had taken more than his share of the... The people they'd killed to make himself advance in cultivation.

  Now that the family reunion was met, I stood at my nascent soul catching each of the nearby cultivators just the briefest amount, enough to make sure that I got a sense of their cultivation level.

  At best, some of them were up to the second realm, but none seem particularly suited to the rigors of being lightly touched by a third or fourth realm cultivator. Why was that? They probably felt like they were untouchable. They've been so their whole lives. Why would this change? They had no reason to change. Until they were found out one day by a man who just wanted to be left alone and his Entourage.

  "I'll make a formation circle over there to disable their cultivation," The elder King said.

  "I'll keep you safe while you do that and then we can double our efforts."

  Egiya brandish a weapon and looked completely at home with the way things were.

  "Xueyie? Lee?" I said. "Let them know the price of their failure."

  Both women looked like they wanted to say something. Neither one wanted to be it. We all knew what was going to happen. By imperial law. Demonic cultivators would be killed on sight.

  There was no future for them.

  "Your attention please. If you all line up in a nice orderly line that we can sort you out and decide what to do with you." Lee scowled.

  They did not want to play ball. They wanted to play fuck fuck games.

  "Or you can die right now," Xueyie said, really using her voice.

  Yes, I know she was a classically trained opera singer on this world but really, I should not have been surprised. He had control and she had them enthralled. Was it the promise of violence that kept her this way? Almost certainly, but did she have a certain panache, a style that made me think empress material? Of course she did.

  I kept scanning the crowd with my niece and so hoping that I would find the ringleader or was Ron's parents. Even really didn't know what they looked like. Somebody here was an actual leader, and they were not making themselves known. Even the best veiling technique would stop my Nathan Soul from fully revealing their inner secrets.

  I was intentionally holding back on my power to make it seem like I was only fourth round. And that was when got a huge whiff of dream Aura from the nightmares of the people that knew they'd seen their last days of freedom.

  Look it's about institutions. And those institutions that keep us free and able to live left to the fullest. Institutions are made up of people. People are fallible but they might also change the rules on a dime.

  And when somebody hunts enough. Demonic cultivators they become an institution within their own right. Today my institution my little gang was running up against somebody else's institution, and they were not liking it.

  "You can't do this. You have no proof."

  "I was wondering when we would get our first hero," Xueyie said. "Please explain to us that you're not demonic cultivators that you are just regular cultivators who like the arcane."

  "We will wait," Lee said. She had taken my words to heart. "Please do go ahead and tell us how you are at a demonic cultivator family reunion. You had no idea, right?"

  The snark was epic and sexy as hell. I had chosen well.

  Now you might assume that I felt a bit blood thirsty at that moment. There were no humans around that were clearly being used for some demonic plot.

  The mundanity of it all hit my hard. I was not wanting to feel their problems.

  My best guess was that they were doing some twisted trickle-down multi-level marketing thing here with their kills. Having so many people here that had to be advanced through demonic cultivation mean that they were all getting their asses handed to them by someone that I had trained at great person expense in a short amount of time using regular cultivation techniques.

  See that is the thing about institutions. They can get out of hand.