The opening scene reveals the story of Yao Lao, alarming the Soul Emperor.

Hunyuan's mouth was still open, the next word on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say it.

Because his head was tilted to the side.

It wasn't that he went astray on his own; it was the pressure pouring down from above that forced his body to react instinctively.

Everyone in the main hall felt it.

The black entity that had been lurking beneath the dome, maintaining its silence since entering, was shattered at this moment.

A loud bang erupted from the very top of the platform.

It wasn't the sound of battle qi erupting, but the vibration emanating from the black mass itself.

The stone walls of the entire hall trembled simultaneously, and the black mist in the dome was stirred up and rolled wildly by the tremor. Two rows of eerie green ghost flames bent in the same direction.

All the flames were tilted upwards towards the platform.

The floor beneath my feet cracked again.

This time, the cracks didn't start from where Hunyu stood, but from all four walls of the main hall. The cracks converged towards the center, like a net closing in.

The Dou Zun on both sides changed their expressions.

It wasn't the kind of change in expression that comes from alertness; it was fear.

The twenty-six Dou Zun, the lowest of whom was a one-star cultivator, were figures who could roam freely throughout the entire Dou Qi Continent.

But at this moment, none of the twenty-six people dared to look up at the platform above.

One of the three-star Dou Zun in the first row on the left even took half a step back, his heel hitting the stone pillar behind him with a dull thud, but he didn't turn around.

Hunyue also stopped moving.

The figure that had been so rigid just moments before was now even more stiff, and even the breathing had become shallower.

The old man in the gray robe lowered his head, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of his toes.

Among the five stone chairs on the high platform, the Celestial Venerable who had been silent until the left side of the front row stood up, took two steps back, and retreated behind his own stone chair.

Two blurry figures in the back row also made a move, but instead of getting up, they leaned back in their chairs, shrinking themselves even further.

In the entire hall, only two people remained motionless.

One is the Abyss of Souls.

He stood three steps away from Hunyu, his head slightly tilted, his gray eyes half-closed, and his expression very quiet.

It's not a calm and collected quiet, but a quiet that's deliberately maintained under immense pressure.

A vein was throbbing on the back of his hand.

The other is Soul Feather.

He stood there, a white feather fan resting on his shoulder, looking up at the black mass below the dome.

His face was even paler than when he came in.

But his eyes were bright, with golden Bagua patterns slowly rotating deep within his pupils.

The black mass is deforming.

The black mist, which originally had no fixed shape, slowly contracted above the platform, condensing from a diffuse dark mass into a near-spherical shape.

Something is flowing on the surface of the sphere.

The flowing substance emitted a scorching, dark red light, streaking across the surface of the sphere like lava flowing across the black planet.

The brightness of the entire sphere increased visibly.

From dark red to deep red, from deep red to crimson.

The heat rises along with the light.

Hunyu's face was burning from the heat wave, but he did not back down.

He watched the sphere grow brighter and brighter, and his lips moved slightly.

The golden pupils' feedback triggered a series of warnings in his mind.

All the warnings had only one meaning: the energy level of this thing was beyond the limits of what he could calculate.

This is not a Dou Zun.

He was no ordinary half-step Dou Di.

The energy level of this thing is at least at the Dou Di level.

Soul Feather closed his golden eyes.

He turned his head to look at Hunyuan.

"Great Celestial Venerable, what is that?"

Hunyuan didn't look at him.

Hunyuan was looking at that sphere.

His gray pupils reflected a crimson light, making his young face appear to flicker between light and shadow.

"You just said that the clan leader isn't protecting you, but rather guarding against you."

"Some people don't like hearing this."

Hunyu's gaze shifted from Hunyuan's face to the increasingly bright crimson sphere beneath the dome.

The thing stopped expanding.

The brightness was fixed at an extremely glaring level.

Then, a crack appeared on the surface of the sphere.

The gap is small, cutting across the very center of the sphere, like an eye that is opening.

Something was watching him from inside the crevice.

Hunyuan took a step back.

It was just one step, but this was the first time he had retreated since entering the hall.

His voice was very soft.

"The welcome banquet is now over."

He glanced at Hunyu.

"From now on, this is no longer a banquet."

The cracks are getting bigger and bigger.

That "eye" is opening completely.

A sound came from inside the sphere, without any sense of direction, as if it were squeezed out from every single stone brick of the hall at the same time.

The voice was faint, neither male nor female, neither old nor young.

Only one sentence.

"Soul Feather."

The gaps in the sphere opened completely.

A crimson beam of light shot out from it, striking the ground three inches in front of Hun Yu's feet.

The stone slab did not break or crack; it was just that the area illuminated by the light turned transparent for a moment.

Beneath the transparent stone slab, one can see the surging undercurrents deep underground.

The voice said something else.

"Get closer."

"Let me see you."