As some can guess, this title was in direct contradiction with the God-Monarch position. After all, if the clan’s only active god couldn’t even assume the mantle of spiritual leader, what did they achieve godhood for? Thus, in stable times, the God-Monarch was also the hierarch. But whenever the Hengye clan faced a crisis that—for one reason or another—the reigning and future God-Monarch couldn’t solve, the hierarch position would be detached from their throne and granted to the one most favored by Yongye.
Hengye Jie, Qingxin’s grandfather and supreme elder of the Eternal Night Dynasty, was also its last hierarch—forced to take the position at a time of widespread rebellion to, on the one end, rely on Yongye’s boons to stabilize the situation, and on the other, protect his branch line’s political interests. This move deprived his son, Hengye Mochen, of the cultivation resources and opportunities that a God-Monarch’s offspring was entitled to. But at the same time, it enabled Hengye Jie to restructure key clan and official positions so that his line’s talents could occupy the highest and most influential ranks.
In the past, many Daoist or cult leaders followed the night’s example, styling themselves Hierarchs of their respective doctrines. But over time, due to the connection to the Eternal Night and the diplomatic implications with the Central Domain, the title fell out of fashion.
Most religious leaders now went with the Patriarch or Matriarch titles. But since they always had their own religious codes, Lianism and the western continent’s Shamanism were exceptions to this rule.
The Dark Moon Cult was another exception, selecting a hierarch among its grand priestesses to act as a vessel and direct connection to their Dark Moon Goddess. Needless to say, the so-called Dark Moon Goddess never answered the priestesses’ prayers. After all, she didn’t exist. The Dark Moon Cult built itself by relying on the scattered fragments of cultivation methods that Qingxin had created for Yuemi.
Yuemi later tore the divine scrolls into pieces, letting the winds carry them wherever they pleased. The ancestors of the Dark Moon Cult lucked on some fragments, enabling them to build the strongest sect of the seven states. And due to the poem that Qingxin used to encode the cultivation techniques, they mistook Yuemi for a Moon Goddess and used her as their base of worship.
To this day, the priestesses of this absolute matriarchy still yearned for the day that their Moon Goddess would rise from the altar and bless their cult with divine boons. After escaping the Celestial Farm, Tieshan relied on her demonic patron to pass as a human girl and join the Dark Moon Cult—climbing all the ranks to at last be elected as their hierarch. Having a Demon Noble that could fake the voice and splendor of some inexistent goddess didn’t hurt.
But after cultivating to the Divine Transformation realm, with the grand priestesses’ support, Tieshan faked her death—thereby avoiding the summon of the Yanzhou Hegemon. She then acted as the Dark Moon Cult’s secret background, and a connection between them and the Celestial Farm, whose resources she used to train a secret force in the Dark Moon Cult.
Initially, Tieshan never expected outsiders to find their way into Green Leaf Village, and so didn’t think that using “Tieshan” as her Daoist title would cause issues. Also, she’d been presumed dead for centuries, meaning that only seniors of the Yanzhou Province should remember her.
A senior, Xinzi wasn’t. Tieshan could see both his skeletal age and the early-stage Pulse Condensation cultivation that Xinzi didn’t bother to hide.
Had Xinzi been some Dao Revelation old fogey, Tieshan wouldn’t care for his strength. But an 18-years-old Pulse Condensation expert? That alone was horrifying enough, but the Swallowing Skill that Xinzi displayed proved to Tieshan that, under Dao Revelation, this boy had no rival—an incomprehensible concept.
”Tieshan just means ‘iron fan.’ My mother gave me this princess title in the hopes that I could swat any man that attempted to mistreat or take advantage of me into oblivion.”
”A caring mother. Some take that for granted. But those of us that have seen the world know that the opposite isn’t uncommon. What’s your name then?”
”You don’t have to know. Just like I don’t have to see your face or know your name to carry on with these negotiations, right?” Though Tieshan knew that she couldn’t conceal her identity before Xinzi, she immediately shut down Xinzi’s attempt at figuring out her name. Little did she know that our monk could read her heart, an ability that enabled him to see all that Tieshan wished to hide.
The longer Tieshan stood before Xinzi, the more her heart spoke to him, and if not for the golden goat mask keeping his face hidden, Xinzi wouldn’t have been able to hide the shock now twisting his face.
’Hateful…oh so hateful. How could it be you?’ Xinzi kept this thought to himself. And as Tieshan folded her arms below her voluminous chest, our monk stood up, towering above the tall Cow Demoness with his herculean frame.
”You’ve misunderstood the situation. We’re not here to negotiate. We’re here so I can give you my terms. See, don’t think that because I’m showing a trivial avatar courtesy, I’m treating you as a worthy competitor. You’re not my match, and have absolutely no means to resist my forces,” Xinzi said, starting the peace talks.
Tieshan expected that kind of rhetoric and didn’t let Xinzi’s words faze her.
”I beg to differ. Besides trying to break my troops’ mental fortitude with blaring noise, what can you do? We have an eleventh-layer formation to rely on, so no matter what method you put forth, you cannot break through our defenses, and have no choice but to compromise.”
”In this type of warfare, wrong assumptions will get you killed. You assume that my strongest men are at the early stage of the Void Tribulant realm because the leader of the group I sent to harass your Celestial Farm is at that level. But who told you that I was trying to destroy you? What made you think that if I wanted to, I couldn’t just summon forces of this level.” Here, Xinzi snapped his fingers, and in a whirl of sky-blue force, two Law Protectors appeared beside him.
As puppets, they didn’t have traditional cultivation bases, but by relying on the flabbergasting energy fluctuations that animated their metallic bodies, Tieshan could see that each one of those puppets had strength comparable to peak-stage Human Immortals.
Unable to restrain the shock, her eyes widened in disbelief.
”This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can control them with my Spiritual Sense, while you have to rely on astronomical quantities of spiritual energy to power your eleventh-layer Formation. I know what you’re going to say next, you can rely on your space-controlling skills to take away the farm. But beautiful, you’re talking to a man of culture, and as such, I know that the level of spatial mastery and energy that shifting 20,000,000 acres of spiritual farmland requires isn’t what you can produce. After all, cultivation limitations aside, you didn’t achieve this Space Dao Glimpse through mainstream Dao Comprehension.
A Heart Demon Noble helped you speed up the process, tieing your enlightenment and space abilities to his goodwill.
So Tieshan, Lady or Princess, it doesn’t matter. Here, I have no peace to offer you. Either you surrender to me, or I wipe out the Celestial Farm on the spot.”