The Grand Basilica, Empyrean Hall. Thirty-six ancient star-orbs hung high beneath the vault, circling day and night, casting the entire hall in blazing gold. The floor was laid from a single piece of riverborn celestial jade, polished bright enough to reflect a person’s face. Every inch of it carried the weight of absolute authority.
This was the core of the Celestial Palace’s power, the holy ground countless cultivators across the heavens looked up to. On ordinary days, the hall was always orderly and severe. But today, a suffocating stillness had sealed over everything.
Godric sat on the seat of honor in the Empyrean Hall. He wore the black Hall Master robe trimmed in gold. At its hem were embroidered patterns of divine clouds across the nine heavens and myriads of beasts bowing in worship. A purple-gold crown rested on his head. His face had always been stern and imposing—the kind that naturally looked down on all living things.
But right now, that face, usually still as an ancient well, had turned so dark it looked like the sky before a storm broke. Heavy clouds seemed to gather over him, as if world-ending thunder might fall the next instant. His fingers slowly tightened. In his palm, he held a life sigil that had just shattered completely.
The life sigil had been refined from ancient spirit wood. It stood for both the status and the life of a Celestial Palace Elder. Across its surface, three forceful old characters had once been carved into it, carrying endless authority: Grand Elder.
But now, that life sigil, which had carried the life force of a True Immortal Realm Level One expert, had split into pieces. Cracks spread across it like a spiderweb. The warm spiritual light it once held had vanished completely, leaving only dead gray silence behind. That could only mean one thing: its master had already suffered utter soul-ruin. Dead. Gone. Not even a shred of remnant soul remained.
The hall was utterly silent. More than ten cultivators in elder robes stood with their heads lowered on both sides. Each one kept his breathing so light it was barely there. Not one of them dared make a sound. Every one of them held power and status inside the Celestial Palace. On any other day, they each commanded a region and stirred storms with a word. But under the pressure of Godric’s fury right now, not one of them even had the nerve to look up at him.
Everyone knew what the Grand Elder meant to the Celestial Palace. He wasn’t just one of its pillars; he was also Godric’s most trusted and most relied-upon confidant. He had followed Godric for thousands of years, lived and fought at his side, stayed loyal without fail, and handled countless impossible problems. He was one of the true stabilizing pillars of the Celestial Palace.
Now his life sigil had shattered. It was the same as cutting off one of Godric’s arms. The Hall Master’s rage was enough to burn everything to ash. And right in that silence, so thick it nearly stopped breath itself—
“Report!” A shrill, ragged cry tore in from outside the Empyrean Hall. The voice shook so hard it almost split apart, and the fear in it cut straight through the dead stillness hanging over the great hall. In the next breath, a cultivator in an inner-court disciple’s robes stumbled into the hall.
His clothes were in disarray, his hair knot hung crooked, and cold sweat covered his face. He rushed to the middle of the hall, then his legs gave out. He dropped hard to one knee, his forehead nearly pressed against the icy divine jade floor.
“H-Hall Master!” The disciple’s teeth chattered, his voice shook so badly the words were forced out of his throat one by one. “The fifty elites sent to the Demon Dragon Hall… they… they’re all dead! All of them! Not one survived. Not one came back!”
“What?!” A shout burst out, sharp with shock and fury. At the head of the line on the left, Rufus shot to his feet. Spiritual power slammed out of him, and his wide Elder’s robe snapped and billowed without any wind.
His eyes went wide. Disbelief flooded his face, and all the color drained out of it in an instant, leaving only a stark, ashen blankness. “Fifty elites? Those were the strongest our Celestial Palace handpicked. Every one of them was at least High Immortal Realm Level Eight!”
Rufus stepped forward, his voice already breaking out of shape. “Where’s the Grand Elder? Where is he? Didn’t he personally lead the group to the Demon Dragon Hall to pressure them? How did it end like this?!”
The disciple kneeling on the floor shook so badly he looked ready to collapse flat against it. He kept his forehead jammed to the ground and answered in a trembling voice, “Elder Rufus… it wasn’t just the Grand Elder… the three True Immortal elders who went with him… their life sigils… they all shattered just now in the Sigil Hall!”
“Not even a trace of spiritual light was left behind… they… they’ve already… completely fallen!”
Boom! It hit the hall like a thunderclap. The Empyrean Hall, which had been buried under suffocating silence a moment ago, exploded at once.
“Impossible! That’s absolutely impossible!” A tall, gaunt Elder cried out, his face white as paper. “The Grand Elder was at the top of True Immortal Realm Level One. His foundation was deep, his divine arts vast! Darian, the Lord of the Demon Dragon Hall, is only at True Immortal Realm Level One. Their cultivation levels were close, but their real strength was worlds apart. How could Darian possibly kill the Grand Elder?!”
“Unless… unless the Demon Dragon Lineage still has some old monster hiding in the shadows, waiting to come out?” Another Elder, old-faced and tightly frowning, spoke with a note of doubt in his voice. “Or was it the Demons? Rumor says the Demon Dragon Lineage has always had ties with the Demons. Could it be that a Demon expert attacked from the dark this time?”
“This is too far! This has gone way too far!”
“The Demon Dragon Lineage is nothing but a crooked force tucked away in some corner, and they dared to openly kill our Celestial Palace Elders and butcher our elites. If this debt goes unpaid, what face does our Celestial Palace have left? After this, across all realms, who will still take our Celestial Palace seriously?”
Voices rose one after another, hot and sharp. Every Elder wore the same look, murder crowding across every face. The Grand Elder held towering prestige inside the Celestial Palace. He had been strict with everyone, but never unfair, and both the elders and the disciples had respected him deeply for it.
Now he had died at the Demon Dragon Hall. Three True Immortal elders and fifty elites had been buried with him. To the Celestial Palace, this was not just a crushing loss; it was a humiliation they could never wash clean.
An Elder with a harsh, shadowed face and eyes as sharp as a hawk suddenly stood. He strode into the center of the hall, cupped his fists, and bowed toward Godric. Then he spoke in a hard, ringing voice, every word carrying the edge of certain slaughter. “Hall Master!
The Demon Dragon Lineage has wolfish ambitions. They violated our Celestial Palace and killed our elders. This blood debt cannot be shared under the same sky! I ask for permission to lead the Celestial Palace army at once, crush the Demon Dragon Hall flat, leave not even chickens or dogs alive, and avenge the Grand Elder!”
“I ask for the same! I’ll march with him. If we don’t wipe out the Demon Dragons, I won’t rest!”
“Me too! When has our Celestial Palace ever suffered this kind of disgrace? Hall Master, give the order. We’ll take the vanguard and tear Darian to pieces!”
At once, the whole hall surged. More than a dozen elders stepped forward together and bowed to request battle. Their eyes were bloodshot, and the killing intent in them wasn’t hidden in the slightest. The fire in their chests kept climbing, each one of them looking ready to charge out of the Empyrean Hall that instant and level the Demon Dragon Hall to the ground.
Godric still sat in the seat of honor without saying a word. His gaze stayed lowered, locked hard on the shattered fragments of the life sigil in his palm. What burned in his eyes sat there like a volcano buried for ten thousand years, already pushing at the edge of eruption, already close to swallowing whatever restraint he had left.
The Grand Elder had followed him for thousands of years. Back when Godric had still been nothing but an ordinary cultivator, the Grand Elder had stayed at his side. He had helped him climb step by step into the Lord’s seat, cleared away obstacles for him, steadied the Celestial Palace, and handled countless matters within the sect.
He had been the most trusted arm at Godric’s side. What lay between them had long since gone past rank and duty; it had become something closer than that—as close as blood. And now, the Grand Elder was dead. Dead at the hands of a barely known Lord of the Demon Dragon Hall.
Nothing left of him. His life sigil shattered, his soul returned to heaven and earth.
