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

Soul Extinction's vertical pupils withdrew their scanning motion and landed back on the shattered dark gold table in front of him.

The tabletop was jagged and broken, with a few fragments still hanging on the edge, swaying slightly in the breeze from his sleeve.

He raised his pale hand and flicked at the metal fragments near the broken edge with his fingers.

The fragment fell and bounced onto the bone steps with a clear, ringing sound in the quiet hall.

"Three days."

He said two words.

The temperature inside the main hall dropped even further.

"I'm giving everyone involved in developing the top-secret operation plan three days."

"Self-check, mutual check, any method you can think of."

His fingers left the table and slowly retracted into the black mist.

"If no one brings the mole to me in three days..."

"Then you don't need to pay."

"Anyone who has handled intelligence related to the operation within the past three months, whether they reviewed it, transmitted it, copied it, or kept it, will have their soul extracted."

When the last two words were uttered, one of the Dou Zun kneeling on either side of the main hall hit the ground with his knee.

That was the sound of the body shaking uncontrollably and hitting something.

Soul extraction.

The most severe punishment for the Soul Clan.

The soul is forcibly separated from the body, but consciousness and the sense of pain are retained, and the soul is thrown into the Netherworld Purgatory to suffer for a hundred years.

A hundred years later, their souls dissipate, and they are not even qualified to be reincarnated.

"Lord of the Palace."

Hunyuan's voice came from above, clearly indicating his deliberation.

"The list of personnel who handled operational intelligence within the past three months has been compiled by my subordinates, totaling forty-seven people."

"This includes three of the Nine Heavenly Venerables."

When he said the words "three of the Nine Heavenly Venerables," he paused for a beat, intentionally or unintentionally.

"If all the souls are extracted, the Heavenly Gang Palace's intelligence network and mid-to-high-level command system will be paralyzed overnight."

"The ancient clans don't need traitors; they can fight their way in on foot."

Hunyuan was telling the truth, but the truth is never appreciated at times like this.

There was silence on the throne for several breaths.

"You mean my order was unreasonable?"

"Your subordinate dares not."

Hunyuan lowered his head for a moment and then raised it again.

"I was just reminding the Palace Master that the result the mole wanted to see was precisely that the Heavenly Gang Palace itself would fall into chaos."

"If we dismantle our own structure because of catching the mole, the ancient tribes will be laughing in their sleep."

After these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the hall underwent a subtle change.

Some of the kneeling Dou Zun secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Hunyuan's words were tantamount to fighting for everyone's lives.

But the price was that he himself withstood the wrath of Hun Miesheng.

The black mist above the throne churned for a while, like a pot of thick porridge that had been stirred.

Hun Miesheng stared at Hun Yuan for a long time with his vertical pupils.

You have a point.

Hunyuan's shoulders relaxed slightly.

"But I don't want to hear reason."

My shoulders have tensed up again.

"What I want is that person's name."

"Three days."

"If you can find a better way to identify them, I can leave the forty-seven people alone."

"If you can't find him..."

He paused for a moment.

"Then do as I say."

"All forty-seven were drawn."

"I'll bring in the people I need from outside, and I'll rebuild the system from scratch if it's broken."

"Even if it means losing three years' worth of vitality to the Heavenly Gang Palace, I'll accept it."

"But the traitor must die."

These words were not a threat, but a decision.

The decision has already been made.

Everyone present could tell that Hun Miesheng wasn't just making empty threats; he really meant it.

Hunyuan remained silent.

He has said everything he wanted to say, and that's all he can do.

The temple master's mind is made up; further persuasion will only lead to his own downfall.

The atmosphere in the main hall was extremely oppressive.

The kneeling Dou Zun were all quieter than the last. Some were desperately trying to recall whether they had touched any intelligence documents in the past three months, some were planning their escape routes, and some had already begun to mentally dredge up old grievances against their colleagues.

Fear breeds not unity, but suspicion.

This is exactly the effect that Soul Annihilation aims for.

The celestial beings on the high platform were in no better shape. The one on the left in the front row had a terribly ashen face, while the two figures in the back row remained motionless, as if they were dead.

The Five Heavenly Venerable Soul Yue knelt in his original spot, remaining silent from beginning to end, but the veins on his clenched fists bulged out, as if he wanted to crush his own hand bones.

His anger was not directed at the traitor, nor at Hun Miesheng.

He was angry with himself.

He was a celestial being who advocated war. There was a traitor in his palace, and his men were dying in front of him, but he didn't hear a word of it.

The entire hall, from ceiling to floor, was filled with two things.

It was the same oppressive force left in the air by the soul's destruction and rebirth.

The other thing is the countdown for 47 people whose lives are hanging by a thread.

Three days.

Seventy-two hours.

When the time comes, either hand over the traitor's name, or everyone will be sent to the Netherworld Hell.

There is no third way.

Hunyu stood at the bottom of the steps.

The dried corpse of Hun Feng lay at his feet.

He lowered his head, holding a white feather fan in his hand, the fan surface closed.

His breathing was even, his heartbeat steady, completely out of sync with those around him who were terrified and on the verge of death.

In his mind, the golden Bagua pattern completed its final rotation and then settled.

The fragments that couldn't be piled up in the carriage were pieced together by Hun Miesheng one by one during his outburst of anger.

The three routes, each held by a different person, have all been leaked.

However, the route is obtained by infusing soul power into the soul sea, and cannot be read by external forces.

Only the three people who possess the route can retrieve it from their own soul sea and hand it over to the ancient clan.

It's impossible that all three of them were the mole.

Then there's only one possibility: someone can see what's in the souls of those three people without even touching them.

He had already checked all the people with this ability in the entire Heavenly Gang Hall on the carriage.

Two suspects.

Now there's an additional condition: the route for Soul Extinction's eighth operation was personally determined by him.

This means that Hun Miesheng himself was also within the scope of the mole's spying.

Those who can peer into the Soul Sea of ​​Soul Extinction and Life must have a cultivation level no lower than that of a half-step Dou Di.

Of the two suspects, only one meets the threshold.

The answer is out.

Hunyu's lips twitched slightly.

The hall was deathly silent; no one dared to speak or move.

The air was thick with tension, like a cast-iron shell, and everyone huddled in their own fear, awaiting their fate three days from now.

In this suffocating silence.

A very soft, crisp sound rang out in the hall.

"Smack."

The white feather fan closed its ribs, producing a crisp and clean sound.

The sound wasn't loud, but in an environment where everyone was afraid to even breathe loudly, it was as clear as a needle falling on a copper plate.

All eyes turned to them at the same time.

The Dou Zun on both sides, the Tian Zun on the high platform, Hun Yuan, Hun Yue, and the shadows in the back all looked in the direction from which the sound came.

Below the steps.

A young man dressed in white stood beside a mummified corpse, holding a closed white feather fan in his hand, a faint smile playing on his lips.

He raised his head, looked over the steps, over the white bone railing, over the shattered dark gold table, and looked at the blood-red vertical pupil deep within the black mist.

"Lord of the Palace."

His voice was not loud, but it was flat, yet every word was delivered steadily and clearly to the ears of everyone present.

"Three days is too long."

The black mist above the throne stopped churning.

Those blood-red vertical pupils were fixed on his face.

"I have a plan that will only take half a day."