He wore a spotless white holy robe. Not a speck of dust touched it. The fabric looked light and soft, yet it carried an endless sacred weight. Ancient, mysterious sacred sigils had been embroidered across the robe with golden sacred thread.
With each breath he took, those sigils shifted faintly, echoing the holy radiance filling the great hall. Every time they flowed, a faint trace of ultimate energy spread out from them. His features were handsome, but there was authority in them. Sharp brows. Bright eyes. A straight nose. Clean, defined lips.
He looked no older than a man in his middle years, yet there was a steadiness about him that seemed to have been tempered by ages upon ages. There was not the slightest trace of deliberately released pressure around him. Even so, a holy radiance spilled from him as naturally as breathing, enough to keep others from daring to meet his eyes or draw near. It was as if he himself was light, was sanctity, was the most orthodox law between heaven and earth.
He simply sat there in silence on the throne. His posture was straight. His gaze was calm. From his place above, he looked down at Godric below with eyes as still as water, without the slightest visible ripple. There was no anger. No contempt. No mockery. No pity. It was the kind of look a man gave a stranger. The kind he gave some small, worthless matter. And that calm only made it worse. The steadier Aurelius looked, the tighter everything in the hall drew, until the air itself seemed to press down on the chest.
On both sides of Aurelius stood the twelve Guardian Elders of the Celestial Basilica. Every one of those twelve was a True Immortal Realm powerhouse whose name carried across the Fourteenth Firmament. Outside this hall, any one of them could have founded a sect and stood above ten thousand admirers. Their auras were immense, but held tight under the surface.
Holy radiance curled around them. Their faces stayed stern. Their eyes were sharp. They looked like twelve war gods guarding the hall itself, motionless and still carrying a pressure that hit like a wall. At that moment, all twelve sets of eyes fell on Godric and the battered people from the Celestial Palace. Some of those looks were cold and measuring, as if they were sizing up a pack of intruders. Some carried naked contempt, as if they were looking at stray dogs that had lost their home. A few of the Elders even let mocking, satisfied little smiles show right at the corners of their mouths.
The great hall was dead silent. So silent it turned vicious. The only sounds were the faint turning of the Sacred Sun. And the breathing in the hall, every breath held down to the breaking point.
Godric stood where he was and took those looks one after another. Each one felt like a blade. Not one clean strike, but a slow cut, scraping across his flesh, then dragging across something deeper. Pain in the flesh could still be borne. But this kind of slow killing of the spirit, this grinding at a man’s dignity, left him feeling like spikes were buried in his back and needles had been driven under him.
He had lived a full ten thousand years. He had swept through the Fourteenth Firmament all that time. He had always been the one looking down on others, always the one throwing out the ridicule. When had he ever suffered humiliation like this? Never in all those years had anyone looked him over like this—like he was nothing, less than dust underfoot. But he could only endure it. Even if it meant grinding his teeth to pieces, he still had to swallow it all.
Godric drew in another deep breath and forced every trace of turmoil back down. Then he stepped forward, his feet landing hard against the floor paved with sacred jade of light. That back of his, straight for so many years, slowly bent. Then he bowed deeply toward Aurelius on the throne, lowering himself all the way.
With that bow, tens of thousands of years of pride went down with him.
With that bow, the old glory of Celestial Palace went down too.
With that bow, every last bit of resistance and desolation was pressed into the ground.
“Godric, Lord of the Basilica of Celestial Palace, leads the surviving disciples in paying respects to the Master of Celestial Basilica…” His voice came out low and rough, worn raw by the road, by flight, by days of strain without rest. Even so, he kept his tone as respectful and humble as he could, not daring to let a shred of offense slip into it.
Behind him, the two hundred or so Celestial Palace disciples, dressed in rags and covered in wounds, also forced themselves through it and bowed together. The movement came unevenly. Some were hurt too badly for even bending at the waist to come easy while others trembled faintly where they stood, the strain inside them showing whether they wanted it to or not. But in the end, they still lowered their heads. Because they knew Godric was enduring this, and that meant they had to endure it too.
On the throne, Aurelius still didn’t speak. Even his gaze barely changed. He only looked down at Godric and the others where they knelt and bowed before him. His eyes were so calm they were nearly cold. No response. No gesture. No word telling them to rise.
Time dragged on, one breath at a time. One second… Two. Then, three… One breath… Ten breaths… A hundred…
Godric stayed in that bowed salute the whole time. His back bent so far it looked ready to snap, all his strength forced into his legs as a fine sheen of cold sweat slowly pushed out across his forehead and ran down his cheeks. Holding the posture that long left his whole body aching. But that ache had nothing on what this was doing to him.
Aurelius still showed no sign of letting him stand. This deliberate neglect, this silent refusal to even acknowledge him, cut deeper than any spoken insult or vicious mockery ever could. It left a person with nowhere to put himself. This was a naked show of force.
Godric knew it perfectly well. Aurelius wanted him kneeling here. Wanted him waiting. Wanted him to taste what it was like to fall from a ruler standing over everyone else into something people could grind underfoot. He wanted to make one thing clear: from this day forward, on Saintlight Peak, in the Basilica Hall, Godric was nothing. His pride, his dignity, his place, none of it was worth a thing.
Godric ground his teeth so hard his lips were nearly split. The taste of blood spread through his mouth. He endured it. He forced down every bit of it. The fury. The humiliation. The urge to lift his head, roar at them, and draw his sword on the spot. For the disciples behind him, for the flame seed of the Celestial Palace, he had no choice but to endure.
At last, after who knew how long, after a stretch of time that felt as long as a century, Aurelius finally spoke from the throne. His voice came out warm and clear, like spring water running through the mountains, easy on the ear and carrying not a trace of harshness. But under that warmth sat distance and cool disregard from someone high above everyone else, along with an authority that left no room to question him.
“Lord Godric, no need for such formality… Rise…”
It was only a short sentence, but it landed like a pardon. Godric slowly straightened. His stiff body swayed a little, and he braced himself to stay upright. Then he lifted his head toward Aurelius and forced a respectful, humble smile onto his face. “Thank you, my lord…”
Aurelius looked at him in silence. His gaze rested on Godric for a moment, then the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, leaving behind a smile that was not quite a smile, carrying more than it showed.
“Lord Godric… If I remember right, the last time I formally met you was three thousand years ago, at the Celestial Convocation in the Fourteenth Firmament…” His tone stayed flat, as if he were bringing up some forgettable old matter. Yet every word struck Godric like a small hammer, tapping against his chest one hit at a time.
“Back then, Lord Godric was full of life and standing high in his glory. On the ceremonial platform, in front of everyone, you pointed at my nose and said the Celestial Basilica was nothing but a pack of turtles hiding in the Luminous Sanctuary, too scared to step outside, too scared to contend with anyone, and nowhere near worthy of being named alongside the Celestial Palace as the true orthodox line of the celestials…”
“Those words have stayed with me to this day. I haven’t forgotten a single one.” His voice stayed mild. But the mockery in it didn’t. He laid every bit of that ridicule out in the open, right in front of everyone.
