But right then, the white-haired Guardian Elder standing at Aurelius’ left suddenly let out a cold laugh. He stepped forward and broke the stillness himself.
“Godric, that all sounds real nice. Better than a song. Big promises, plenty of sincerity on the surface. But who knows if any of it is true? Who knows whether you’re trying to fool us?”
“And what if you’re only planning to use the Celestial Basilica as a shelter? What if you’re swallowing it for now, waiting for the storm to pass, waiting for your wounds to heal and your strength to rise again, and then the moment you’re back on your feet, you turn on us? If that happens, wouldn’t we be opening the door to a wolf and raising a disaster inside our own house?”
Another Elder with a dark face picked it up at once. His voice came out cold, not hiding a shred of distrust. “That’s right. The men of the Celestial Palace have always been slippery and scheming, with tricks buried deeper than anyone can see…”
A third Elder, thin as a rail, joined in with a twisted little smile. “And another thing… You people from the Celestial Palace have always treated the Sacred Mountain as more important than your own lives. The secrets hidden in there, and the dirty business tied to them, probably aren’t that simple, are they?”
“I’ve heard it for a long time now. Under the name of pilgrimage and blessings at the Sacred Mountain, your Celestial Palace has been secretly abducting countless wandering cultivators and members of smaller clans, draining their spirit and blood essence. Cruel methods. Rotten to the core. All of it just to revive some forbidden existence and do something that should never have been done.”
“If filth like that, if a stain like that, ever got out, it would be enough to damn your Celestial Palace forever. And if the Celestial Basilica took you in, wouldn’t that mean we’d be dragged down with you? We’d carry your blame, get cursed by the world right alongside you, and end up as the target of everybody’s hatred.”
The instant those words landed, every person from the Celestial Palace went rigid. The color drained out of their faces until they looked like the dead. Draining cultivators of their spirit and blood essence, then trying to bring a forbidden existence back—that was the biggest secret the Celestial Palace had. It was the one thing that could never be dragged into the open, the handle anyone could use to bring the entire Celestial Palace under siege by every race and wipe it out for good.
It had been buried deep! Outside the upper ranks of the Celestial Palace, almost nobody knew. And yet the Celestial Basilica had known about it all along.
Godric’s face turned stark white. He rushed to speak, trying to force an explanation out before the room closed in on him. “Elders, you’ve misunderstood. You absolutely can’t believe rumors like that. Those stories were spread on purpose by people with bad intentions… They made all of it up out of malice.”
“Rumors? Ha!” The white-haired elder gave another cold laugh. His gaze cut like a blade as he broke straight across Godric’s words. “Lord Godric, do you take everyone sitting here for three-year-old children? Do you really think we’re that easy to fool? Did you think the Celestial Basilica never investigated those missing cultivators, those wandering cultivators who died for no reason and ended in utter soul-ruin, without even the chance to reincarnate? Did you really think the filth your Celestial Palace did could stay buried forever?”
Godric opened his mouth, trying to argue again. But when the words reached his lips, there was nothing he could say. Those things had happened. The proof was stacked like iron. He had no way to deny it.
Then, right at the point when the pressure in the hall had tightened as far as it could go, one of the Celestial Palace Elders standing behind Godric finally hit his limit. He had always been hard-tempered by nature. He had watched his fellow disciples get mocked and trampled underfoot, and now the Basilica Elders had torn open the sore spot and ground them into it.
“That’s enough!” The shout cracked through the hall.
The middle-aged Celestial Palace Elder was covered in blood and badly wounded, his aura so weak he could barely stay on his feet without swaying. But at that moment, he forced himself upright. His whole face had gone red, and his eyes were bloodshot, burning as he glared at the Basilica side.
“Our Celestial Palace did lose! We did fall this low! We were driven into a dead end! But we still came here with sincerity! We came here asking for help, asking for an alliance among celestials!”
“If we’re the ones in trouble today and you won’t help us, fine. But instead of stopping there, you kick us while we’re down and mock us without holding anything back! With hearts like yours, with faces like yours, you still think you’re fit to call yourselves the true line of the celestials?”
The more he spoke, the harder he drove the words. His voice kept rising until it was nearly a raw shout.
“Don’t forget this! The demon’s Demon Dragon Lineage is surging forward with nothing to stop it… and Skylar is more terrifying than any of you seem to understand! Today, you laugh at us. You humiliate us. But when the day comes that the Demon Dragon slaughters its way through you and Skylar crushes you underfoot, we’ll see whether any of you can still laugh then!”
“Insolence!” A sharp shout cut straight across his words.
One of the Celestial Basilica’s golden-robed elders flew into a rage. Holy radiance burst from his body in a violent swell. The crushing pressure of the True Immortal Realm swept through the great hall in an instant, heavy as a mountain as it slammed down on the Celestial Palace Elder.
“You dare bellow inside the Basilica Hall and insult the Basilica Elders? You’re courting death!” The golden-robed elder’s eyes turned glacial, and he moved to suppress him.
But before he could make a move, on the throne, Aurelius slowly raised his right hand. It was a simple motion. He released no aura at all, and he made no sound. But the golden-robed elder, who had been throwing his weight around a moment ago, went rigid on the spot. The holy radiance surging off him snapped back at once. He didn’t dare say another word.
Aurelius still sat on the throne. That mild smile was still on his face. But now there was nothing warm about it. It sent a chill straight up from the soles of the feet to the crown of the skull. His gaze rested calmly on the Celestial Palace Elder who had just been shouting himself raw.
Then he spoke. His voice was gentle, but the weight behind it left no room for doubt and no room for defiance. “Finished?”
