The Cold and Aloof Palace Master's Daily Demon-Slaying Life

Multiple rules of sacrifice, a hundredfold power of perfection, a wide variety of supernatural abilities and magical treasures...

It appears impressive, but in reality it is all show and no substance, merely a facade.

Faced with an absolute disparity in strength, all struggles appear pale and laughable.

Zuo Qingqiu even felt a little disheartened.

This battle to establish her authority turned out to be even more uninteresting than she had anticipated.

She shook her head, no longer looking at Xia Zhu who was about to be smashed into a pulp, and turned her gaze to the desolate and ruined Yanfu Mountains not far away.

The Diluo Sect has been wiped out.

The mission is complete.

However, at this moment—

An unexpected change occurred.

"Buzz—"

A very faint yet incredibly clear sound, like jade shattering, suddenly rang out above Xia Zhu's body, which was about to fall to the ground, without any warning.

Zuo Qingqiu turned her head, her gaze sharp as lightning, and instantly locked onto the source of the sound.

Suddenly, the void about three feet above Xia Zhu's body rippled like water.

Immediately, a jade pendant about the size of a palm, pure white in color, and carved with ancient cloud patterns, appeared out of thin air without warning.

Yes, it appeared out of thin air.

It did not fly out from Xia Zhu's body, nor did it fly in from anywhere else; rather, it manifested directly and without any process from "nothingness".

It was as if it had always been there, only to be "seen" now.

This bizarre scene finally caused Zuo Qingqiu's usually calm and composed eyes to narrow slightly.

A hint of seriousness flashed silently deep within his pupils.

Because, just moments before this jade pendant appeared, her Golden Core divine sense, which could cover thousands of miles in radius, see the finest details, and even "see" the wriggling of insects underground, failed to detect any trace of the jade pendant's existence.

There were no energy fluctuations, no spatial ripples, no causal connections...

There was nothing there.

It simply ignored her divine sense's probing and manifested directly and abruptly.

This... is definitely not normal.

unless……

Zuo Qingqiu's mind raced, and his divine sense instantly rose to its peak, like the most intricate net, firmly locking onto and probing the jade pendant that had appeared and the surrounding space.

At the very moment her divine sense locked onto the jade pendant—

"Click."

The moment the white jade pendant appeared, it shattered completely.

It transformed into countless tiny, shimmering jade powders, which drifted away in a soft rustling sound.

But at the center of the shattered jade pendant, a single, extremely refined, pure golden light, radiating a faint aura of power and ancient Taoist charm, suddenly lit up.

The golden light was no bigger than a grain of rice, yet it gave people a feeling of being as heavy as a mountain, as vast as the sea, as if it had experienced countless ages.

"call out--"

A flash of golden light, moving faster than divine sense could perceive, instantly pierced Xia Zhu's cracked brow below.

"Buzz—"

Xia Zhu's body, which was falling rapidly and whose breath was so weak that it was almost extinguished, suddenly shuddered violently the moment the golden light entered.

The downward momentum suddenly stopped.

It was as if an invisible giant hand was holding it firmly, and it was suspended in mid-air, only a few dozen feet above the ground.

The aura emanating from her body, which had been plummeting and had reached the Qi Refining stage, was as if injected with a stimulant, ceasing its decline and even beginning to stabilize in a strange way.

Although still weak and showing no signs of healing from its cracked body, at least it has stopped deteriorating and is no longer on the verge of collapse.

It was as if that golden light had forcibly "frozen" the process of her body's collapse.

This sudden turn of events instantly transformed the seriousness in Zuo Qingqiu's eyes into solemnity.

Her figure remained suspended in place, without moving.

But his aura subtly became more refined and profound, like a sharp sword about to be drawn.

Because, at the very moment that golden light entered Xia Zhu's brow, her heightened divine sense finally caught a trace of an extremely subtle yet incredibly clear aura.

A trace...

The aura of a Golden Core True Monarch!

Although extremely faint, like a candle flickering in the wind, seemingly about to be extinguished at any moment, the unique "Daoist charm" and "powerful aura" that belong to a higher level of life and are in harmony with the Great Dao cannot be faked!

"As expected... there was a backup plan."

Zuo Qingqiu understood, but wasn't too surprised.

The Diluo Sect has a history of tens of thousands of years and has produced more than one Golden Core True Monarch. It is quite normal for the sect to have the ancestral master's secrets left behind.

She just didn't expect that this backup plan would appear in this way, and that it could even evade her divine sense detection.

It seems that the founder of the Diluo Sect who left this contingency plan possessed extraordinary attainments in the Dao of Space.

Was he perhaps a True Lord of some rank in the Yu Fa Dao lineage during his lifetime?

But none of that matters anymore...

Ultimately, this is merely a wisp of the True Monarch's aura that has remained for tens of thousands of years since its original body died, and whose existence is unknown.

How could he possibly contend with a complete Golden Core True Monarch with just this wisp of aura?

That's utterly delusional.

It's just a matter of making her use a few more tricks.

Perfect timing! She also wanted to see what kind of "surprise" the "founder" of the Diluo Sect had left behind.

Just as Zuo Qingqiu was thinking, Xia Zhu, who was suspended in mid-air and enveloped in golden light, suddenly opened her eyes slowly.

It wasn't Xia Zhu's dark red vertical pupils from before, nor were they the chaotic eyes after the mutation.

Instead, they were a pair of calm, deep, aged eyes that seemed to have endured countless years and seen through the vicissitudes of life, yet also carried a hint of weariness and helplessness.

Between the opening and closing of his eyes, faint phantom images of the ephemeral changes of the sun, moon, and stars, and the primordial transformations of the universe could be seen.

These eyes formed an extremely eerie and discordant contrast with Xia Zhu's young, eerie, yet now cracked and pitiful face.

The next moment, Xia Zhu spoke.

The voice that came out was no longer Xia Zhu's clear, cold, and wildly hoarse female voice.

Instead, it was the voice of an elderly man, aged, peaceful, as if it came from the far reaches of time.

The sound was not loud, but it echoed clearly above the silent ruins, carrying an indescribable sense of vicissitude and emotion.

"I didn't expect this..."

"Tens of thousands of years... a mere blink of an eye..."

"The little trick I left behind back then... has actually come in handy one day..."

"And I never expected..."

"The 'Earth Luo Sect' that I founded back then... has actually degenerated into this 'demonic sect' filled with demonic energy and sacrificing its own members..."

"Ah... truly... life is unpredictable, fate is cruel..."

On the other side, Zuo Qingqiu simply looked calmly at "Witch Xia Zhu," or rather, at the ancient lingering will that "manifested" through Xia Zhu's body.

Xia Zhu, no, at this moment she should be called "Ancestor Di Luo", slowly turned her old eyes and scanned the ruins below, the corpses scattered everywhere, and the blood still lingering. A complex and incomprehensible emotion flashed across her eyes.

There was regret, disappointment, and helplessness... but in the end, it all turned into a deep calm.

Then, he raised his head, and his gaze finally fell on the figure above him, standing in a blue robe and bamboo hat, holding a sword.

The moment his gaze fell upon Zuo Qingqiu, the calm in his aged eyes was suddenly replaced by an undisguised look of astonishment.

-

[Behind-the-scenes bonus]

When the update reached the daily life storyline of the cat lovers—

Reader A rants: "What the hell?! Two women there, all lovey-dovey and mushy, what's so interesting about that? Hurry up and go slay the demons! I want to see rivers of blood."

When the update reaches the demon-slaying and monster-exorcising storyline—

Reader B rants: Screw you! The protagonist is invincible; unless he encounters a True Monarch of the same level, he's basically killed in one move. What's so interesting about that? I came here to read the posts, so hurry up and start posting!

author:……