Inside the great hall, the air turned even heavier in an instant. Godric’s face locked for a beat. The color in it kept shifting, green to white, while the fire in his chest surged higher and higher. Even so, he forced it back down. He bent slightly again, lowering himself even further.
When he spoke, his tone came out more humble than before, with open remorse and admission of fault. “Back then… I was arrogant and full of myself… I spoke without restraint and lost my head for a moment. That was the only reason I said such disgraceful things. My lord, please be generous enough not to lower yourself to my level. I ask that you forgive the offense born of my ignorance back then.”
“Forgive you?” Aurelius repeated it softly. Then he let out a light chuckle. It wasn’t loud, but it carried cleanly through the entire great hall.
“Lord Godric, you give my words too much weight. What you said back then wasn’t entirely without reason. You could even call it the truth… The Celestial Basilica has always kept to one corner and held fast to Saintlight Peak.
We were never like your Celestial Palace, commanding the winds and clouds across the Fourteenth Firmament, sweeping through every direction, glorious and untouchable, full of style and force…” He paused there.
Then his gaze slowly dropped from Godric’s face to the battered, ragged Celestial Palace disciples standing behind him. That gaze passed over them one by one. Every Celestial Palace disciple it landed on lowered their head at once, not daring to meet his eyes.
Aurelius still sounded warm. Under that warmth, though, something sharp enough to cut and cold enough to freeze had settled in.
“It’s just… There’s something I’m curious about… Your Celestial Palace was so mighty, so imposing, calling the winds and summoning the clouds across the Fourteenth Firmament. So how did all that calling and shouting leave you looking like this instead?”
“Back then, you had thousands of elites. Now you’re down to two hundred broken survivors… Back then, the Celestial Palace stood tall. Now you don’t even have a home… Back then, the Hall Master who lorded over everyone had to be begged with caution. Now you’ve come all the way to the Celestial Basilica to ask for shelter… That’s a hell of a fall before and after all this. I truly can’t make sense of it.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the Basilica’s Guardian Elders at Aurelius’ sides finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.
“When I came in just now, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me… What Hall Master? This looks like a pack of refugees running for their lives.”
“Tsk, tsk… Look at that. Back then you had all the swagger in the world, pointing at the Celestial Basilica and cursing us like we were worthless. And now? Now you came here on your own to beg us to take you in.”
The laughter was harsh, loud, and completely unchecked. The mockery came sharp, mean, and without a shred of restraint. Line after line, it hit like the sharpest blades, driving straight into Godric’s chest and into the chest of every disciple behind him.
Godric’s face kept changing color, green to white, red to black. It looked awful. His hands locked into fists so tight the knuckles turned white. His nails bit deep into his palms. Pain flashed through him, and threads of blood slid slowly through his fingers and dripped onto the bright holy jade floor, glaring against the light. The fury inside him swelled so hard it nearly tore out of his chest.
But Godric still held it in. He could not snap. He could not erupt. He could not afford one reckless move. If he lost control now, everyone who had come with him would die in this hall today.
Godric drew in a deep breath and forced down the surging blood in his chest and the blaze pressing against his ribs. Then he bowed again. His voice came out low and rough, but the respect in it did not slip in the slightest.
“The Hall Master is right. Back then, I was arrogant and ignorant. I brought this end on myself… I came here today to apologize to the Celestial Basilica, and also to ask the Celestial Basilica for aid…”
He slowly raised his head and looked at Aurelius. There was nothing hard left in that gaze now. Only sincerity, and a trace of pleading that he no longer bothered to hide.
“Recently, the demons have risen without warning. The Demon Dragon Lineage has been ravaging every corner, cruel and merciless. Wherever they pass, lives are wiped out and nothing is left growing… Especially within the Demon Dragon Lineage, there is a young man named Skylar. His strength is terrifying beyond belief, far beyond anything anyone expected. He is not someone ordinary cultivators can stand against…”
“I could not bear to watch the celestials be slaughtered by the demons, so I led all of the Celestial Palace’s elites into battle. I had meant to remove this disaster for the celestials and protect peace in one region, but I did not expect the gap between us and the enemy to be so great. In the end, we were crushed, thousands of disciples were killed… The foundation of the Celestial Palace was destroyed, and I myself was badly wounded. Even my cultivation fell sharply.”
By the time he reached that point, his voice had dropped even lower. Each word seemed to drag under the weight of what was left unsaid.
“Now the Celestial Palace is ruined. Our home is gone. Forces all across the Fourteenth Firmament are staring at us… Some want to kick us while we’re down. Some want to swallow us whole while they have the chance. My surviving disciples and I no longer have a place to stay, nowhere to go, and no road left to take…”
“With no other choice, I could only come here and seek refuge with the Celestial Basilica. I beg the Hall Master, for the sake of our shared blood as celestials… to take us in and leave us a way to live…”
“I am willing to hand over all remaining forces of the Celestial Palace, all resources in the secret realm, all treasured relics, and every secret, defense arrangement, and hidden matter tied to the Sacred Mountain. I will offer all of it to the Celestial Basilica as proof of our sincerity. There is not the slightest falsehood in this.”
When he finished, he did not hesitate again. He bowed deeply once more, lowering himself completely to the end. Behind him, the two hundred-odd Celestial Palace disciples watched their Hall Master lower himself that far, and the sight hit like a blade. One after another, they dropped to their knees as well and pressed their heads to the floor, not daring to lift them.
The great hall fell into silence again. The laughter and the mockery from a moment ago vanished without a trace. Aurelius looked quietly at Godric, who was still kneeling on the floor. His gaze ran deep. Something hard to read flickered through his eyes. He was weighing him, toying with him, keeping his distance, and somewhere underneath it, making his own calculations.
A moment later, he finally spoke. His voice was still mild, but there was a faint curl in it. “Lord Godric, are you saying you’re willing to hand over all of the Celestial Palace’s secret realm resources and all the secrets of the Sacred Mountain?”
Godric lifted his head at once. He didn’t dare hide a thing. He nodded quickly, and his answer came out firm. “Yes… I am not speaking falsely. Every word I said is true… The Celestial Palace may have been destroyed, but the secret realm still has a huge amount of cultivation resources sealed inside it, along with divine crystals, immortal herbs, and rare shards. That’s the foundation the Celestial Palace built up over tens of thousands of years…”
“And deeper inside the Sacred Mountain, there’s also the physical body of a Ghost Clan Venerable, sealed away by my Celestial Palace’s ancestors after generations of effort. That is a supreme treasure. Its value can’t be measured… As long as Hall Master is willing to take us in and let the past go, every bit of it will belong to the Celestial Basilica. I will not keep anything back!”
Aurelius gave a slight nod. A trace of satisfaction showed on his face. Godric’s offer had plainly moved him.
The Celestial Palace’s foundation, built over tens of thousands of years… The resources in the secret realm. The secrets of the Sacred Mountain… And the physical body of that Ghost Clan Venerable…
Those were exactly the things the Celestial Basilica had wanted for a very long time, and had never found a way to get its hands on.
