Crack! A faint breaking sound rose. Godric’s hand moved in a flash. Without a single wasted motion, he slammed his palm down on the armrest of his seat. That armrest had been forged from ten-thousand-year dark iron mixed with divine metal. It was hard beyond reason.
Even a full-force strike from ordinary High Immortal cultivators would have had trouble leaving a mark on it. But under that blow, heavy with everything he was holding back, it burst into a cloud of powder and sifted down.
Boom! A savage aura erupted from Godric and swept through the entire Empyrean Hall. The shockwave rolled like a tidal wave. The star pearls hanging from the ceiling shook violently, and every table, every chair, every furnishing in the hall shattered apart.
More than a dozen elders went rigid all at once. They hurriedly pushed their spiritual power into motion to resist, but it still wasn’t enough. The pressure drove them back step after step until their footing turned unsteady, and in the end, every one of them bent at the waist, lowered their heads, and fell completely silent.
Across the entire great hall, nothing remained except the fury pressing down from Godric.
“Darian!” Godric snapped his head up. His voice crashed through the hall like thunder from the highest heavens, rolling again and again until everyone’s ears buzzed and their minds shook with it. “I’m going to tear you into pieces, grind your bones to dust, and wipe your Demon Dragon Lineage out of this world for good!”
The killing intent in his eyes surged. Golden light flared brighter and brighter, and the spiritual power around him churned without rest, like he was about to rip through the air that very next second and storm straight for the Demon Dragon Hall. Godric shot to his feet.
The aura around him climbed straight to its peak, and he was just about to give the order to gather every army under the Celestial Palace and flatten the Demon Dragon Hall. But right at that moment, his step stopped.
The blaze in his chest kept burning, but the reason buried deep in his bones locked down on him at the last possible moment and held him there. Godric slowly closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Then he took another. He forced down the fury that was nearly bursting out of his chest.
Little by little, the violent aura around him pulled back. He stood there without moving for a long time. Behind the silence, his thoughts flashed one after another, turning over possibilities and running through every outcome at speed.
Darian… he is only True Immortal Realm Level One… The Grand Elder had stood at the top of Level One in the True Immortal Realm. His strength had been enough to firmly suppress Darian, and on top of that, he had gone with three True Immortal elders and fifty elite disciples.
A lineup like that would have been more than enough even for a direct assault on a mid-level sect! Even if every last member of the Demon Dragon Lineage had come out together and fought like their lives were on the line, there was still no way they could have killed the Grand Elder’s entire group in such a short time without letting even one person escape to report back.
That simply didn’t make sense… unless…
Godric’s eyes flew open. A good deal of the fire in them had faded. What took its place was something heavy and cold. Unless there had been a hidden powerhouse inside the Demon Dragon Hall helping them… and that person’s strength had to be far beyond True Immortal Realm Level One… maybe even at my own cultivation level, or higher…
At once, Godric remembered that the Demon Dragon Lineage had never really been as simple as it looked on the surface. Behind them, there had always been the infamous Demons. They were a piece those Demons had planted in this region. Could it really have been a Demon expert making a move in person? The instant that thought landed, the rage inside Godric was replaced by a cold wariness.
The Demons were brutal, cunning, and frighteningly strong. If they had truly stepped into this matter, then sending the Celestial Palace’s forces out in a rush right now would be no different from walking straight into a trap. Godric slowly walked back to the seat of honor and sat down again. His face kept shifting—dark to pale and back again—impossible to read.
Below him, the elders saw that their Hall Master had gone from explosive fury to a long silence, and questions began rising one after another in their minds. The heated calls for battle from a moment ago gradually died away as well.
Rufus pressed down the urgency in his chest, stepped forward, and cupped his fist respectfully toward Godric. His voice dropped low. “Hall Master, what are you still hesitating over? The Demon Dragon Lineage killed one of our elders and humiliated our Celestial Palace.
This hatred can’t exist under the same sky… if we don’t take revenge immediately, how are we supposed to answer to the brothers who died? How are we supposed to answer to all the disciples in the hall?”
Godric lifted his eyes and looked at him once. His voice came out low and cold. “You think I don’t want revenge? Heh! The Grand Elder followed me for thousands of years. We were as close as brothers. He died like that, and no one here wants Darian torn to pieces more than I do.”
He slowly rose to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. His gaze swept over every elder present like a blade, and when he spoke again, his tone was heavy but clear. “But have any of you actually thought this through? Darian is only at True Immortal Realm Level One. What gave him the right to kill the Grand Elder, three True Immortal elders, and fifty elites?!”
“He doesn’t have that kind of ability! The Demon Dragon Lineage doesn’t have that kind of strength either! So, there had to be a powerhouse backing him from the shadows. And that person’s strength is very likely… not below mine!”
The moment those words fell, every elder in the hall changed expression. The anger that had just surged up in them was doused in an instant, and what replaced it was deep shock and caution.
Not below the Hall Master? Wouldn’t that mean the other side was at least at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Two, maybe even Level Three? Right now, in the Celestial Palace, besides Godric, there wasn’t a second person with that kind of strength.
Godric looked at the changed faces in front of him and went on in a low voice. “During this stretch of time, three of our Sacred Mountains have been destroyed, and several True Immortal elders have died one after another.
The strength of our sect isn’t what it was before. We’ve already taken a severe blow… if we rashly go to war with the Demon Dragon Lineage now, then even if we win in the end, it will still be a miserable victory, and the price we pay will be beyond severe!
When that happens, do you think the Celestial Basilica and the other great power, the Celestial Palace, both of which have been watching us like hungry wolves, would let go of a chance to kick us while we’re down and wipe us out in one stroke?”
“They wouldn’t!” His voice paused there, and another layer of deeper caution settled into his eyes. “And more than that, Jared is still in Cloudhaven City, working hand in glove with the Sky Dragon Clan and closely tied to them.
That man is ruthless, his strength is strange, and time after time he’s ruined major plans of ours… if our Celestial Palace empties itself out to attack the Demon Dragon Hall, and he uses that chance to strike us from behind, cut off our army’s retreat, and charge straight at the Grand Basilica, then when that happens, with enemies at our front and our rear, how is our Celestial Palace supposed to hold?”
“Pinned from both sides and trapped inside and out, our Celestial Palace will be driven into a point of no return!”
What he said came out clean and sharp, every point in its place, every word landing where it hurt most. The Elders who had been burning hot a moment ago looked at each other now. The fever and fury on their faces slowly gave way to heaviness and reason. They fell quiet. As they turned over Godric’s words one line at a time, the more they thought about it, the colder the whole thing became. That was the truth. All they had been thinking about was revenge, and in the process, they had overlooked the most dangerous part of the situation right in front of them.
After hesitating again and again, one Elder finally opened his mouth with great care. “Hall Master… are you saying… we should let the Demon Dragon Lineage go for now? Swallow this and endure it?”
Let them go? Endure it?
A freezing murderous glint flashed through Godric’s eyes without warning. It was so thick and sharp that every Elder there went still under it, a chill crawling straight through the hall. How could he possibly let them go?
The Grand Elder’s blood could not have been spilled for nothing. The lives of fifty elites could not have been thrown away for nothing. And the humiliation of the Celestial Palace could not be swallowed just like that.
