In an extremely mysterious location, dense, hazy mist spread wantonly across the heavens and earth, as if draped in a thin veil of gauze.
A pure white, flawless palace stood silently within. The palace covered an area about a hundred zhang wide—a structure of immense scale, with curved eaves, interlocking brackets, and carved beams and painted rafters. Every single detail was exquisitely crafted.
It seemed almost divinely made, radiating an inviolable solemn dignity, without a single flaw to be found.
Surrounding this vast palace was an expansive, boundless lake. The lake’s surface was as smooth as a mirror, the clear water reflecting the palace’s lofty silhouette alongside the indistinct, ethereal mist.
A gentle breeze, from no one knew where, stirred layers of ripples across the lake. Amidst the shimmering, glistening water, the scene outside the palace gates was reflected in full—a dense, swarming mass of countless human figures.
Without exception, they all wore strange, pure white robes. The long hoods on these white robes concealed their faces completely, leaving only a dark, profound shadow behind.
At this moment, their movements were perfectly uniform, yet carried a mechanical stiffness, as if they were puppets controlled by invisible strings.
Outside the palace, they began to kneel in unison, slowly lowering themselves to the ground. Then, in the same rhythm, they prostrated themselves.
Their foreheads struck the white jade bricks of the floor with heavy, dull, and rhythmic thuds.
Before the empty palace, this scene was particularly jarring. Apart from the clear sound of kowtowing, there was no other extraneous noise.
This indescribable strangeness grew ever thicker, sending chills down one’s spine and raising goosebumps.
However, this bizarre and terrifying spectacle was completely shattered the very next second.
A furious roar, laden with overwhelming rage, boomed out from deep within the palace like a thunderbolt from the heavens.
“Damned Black Bird Guard!”
“You little wretch!”
“I will tear you limb from limb!”
The roar carried extreme hatred and resentment, vibrating the palace’s white jade glazed tiles with a resonant hum. The visible waves of sound, imbued with immense momentum, kicked up a terrifying storm outside the palace.
As the gale howled, the white-robed crowd that had been kneeling and kowtowing outside was now ruthlessly swept up by this violent force, their bodies swaying precariously in the wind.
Their white robes flapped loudly in the gusts, as if in the very next breath they would be completely devoured by this irresistible storm.
Just as the white-robed figures outside were being battered and tossed about, on the verge of collapse, a calm, aged voice echoed from within the palace once more. The voice wasn’t harsh, yet it seemed to carry an intangible power.
It pierced straight through the howling wind and the rampaging waves of sound.
Like an invisible giant hand from the heavens, it gradually smoothed out the raging storm outside the palace.
“Bone!”
Just two simple words, spoken with an extremely composed and indifferent tone, yet they revealed an undeniable authority, reverberating leisurely through the air.
In an instant, the chaotic scene outside the palace fell silent, leaving only the sound of heavy, ragged breathing and the fading, dispersing remnants of the storm.
Deep within the palace, a vast, brightly lit hall came into view.
The stillness inside the hall was somewhat oppressive; the cold white jade stone walls emitted a chill, pale light.
At the very center of the hall stood an enormous, pure white lotus dais. Its layered petals unfurled, carved so vividly they seemed alive, with strange patterns etched onto each one.
However, upon this sacred white lotus dais rested a statue of a woman without facial features. No eyes, no nose, no mouth—just a smooth, delicate, blank face. Yet inexplicably, it gave one the feeling that it was staring right at them.
The jade-white woman’s statue possessed an elegant posture and smooth lines, her white robe draping naturally. It should have been a dignified and beautiful pose, yet the missing features lent it an inexplicable air of eeriness and mystery.
Standing below, one couldn’t help but feel a chill creep up their spine, stirring boundless fear and unease in their heart.
At the foot of this woman’s statue, a ring of white candle stands was arranged neatly, twenty in total.
Each stand had an ancient form, with tall, slender candles. At their tips burned cold, pale flames, flickering quietly like eerie, unsettling ghost fires, emitting a dazzling, piercing light.
The chilly white candlelight danced within the empty hall, casting distorted, shifting shadows across the walls.
At this moment, seven of the candle stands had, at some unknown time, been extinguished, leaving only wisps of green smoke rising gently, drifting slowly in the faint light.
Those seven extinguished stands had become lifeless, cold objects, sitting there silently.
Suddenly!
The seven white candle stands, now reduced to cold objects, seemed seized by an invisible giant hand. They abruptly broke free from the lotus dais, shooting forward with incredible speed.
They streaked through the air, leaving several pale afterimages, and flew straight to an old woman, hovering steadily before her.
This elderly-looking woman was none other than the same crone Lu Xuan had encountered multiple times before.
The old woman’s face was a labyrinth of dense, crisscrossing wrinkles, like shriveled, curled orange peel. Each line was steeped in an aura of decay and rot, as if weathered by countless ages of decline.
Yet, within her deeply sunken eye sockets, her gaze was as deep as the boundless, hazy mist—seemingly ethereal and empty, yet radiating an endless strangeness.
Deep within those eerie white pupils, visible flames of rage churned, as if threatening to incinerate everything around them.
At this moment, the old woman’s features were contorted with extreme fury. Her dead, pale white eyes stared fixedly at the candle stands suspended before her.
The air around her hunched, withered form seemed frozen by this intense hatred, deathly still.
Even stranger, an inexplicable force in the void caused the very air to crackle and freeze—the result of her terrifying primordial spirit power leaking out.
How she hated him!
These seven white candle stands represented pillars of the Holy Sect, including three individuals at the level of Supreme Protector—martial artists at the Great Completion stage of Outer Gang or above.
This time, the sect’s losses were devastating, its vitality severely damaged.
Three martial artists above the Great Completion stage of Outer Gang had perished, along with four Protectors at the Outer Gang level.
The sect’s hierarchy was divided as follows: Incense Master, Elder, Protector, Supreme Protector, and Supreme Elder.
These corresponded to the Blood Refining realm, Internal Qi realm, Outer Gang Grandmaster realm, Outer Gang Grandmaster Great Completion realm, and Divine Mansion realm.
If the sect had only lost such elite forces, it might have been bearable.
But those three White Lotus Nightmare Flowers had come directly from the Holy Mother herself—they were of paramount importance.
Yet they had been so easily destroyed by someone.
If it hadn’t been for that wretched brat who appeared out of nowhere, all her carefully laid plans would have succeeded.
The moment the old woman recalled Lu Xuan’s face, those already strange, pale eyes were instantly flooded with boundless resentment, as if she wanted to devour him alive.
She had contended with the Great Xia imperial court for over a thousand years—never had she felt so humiliated as she did today.
Beside the old woman stood a strange-looking old man.
The old man had lost both legs, his height reduced to only half of a normal person’s, yet he floated nonchalantly in mid-air, light as a feather, unaffected by the weight of his body.
His expression was calm, his white robe billowing freely around him like soft clouds, as if the old woman’s fury beside him had nothing to do with him.
Only occasionally would a flicker of cold white light flash in his eyes.
This old man was the second Supreme Elder of the Pure World White Lotus Sect—Bai Shen!
Like Bone, he was also a martial artist at the Great Completion stage of the Divine Mansion realm—a Primordial Spirit True Lord!
Bai Shen seemed utterly indifferent to Bone’s rage beside him, his expression remaining serene. He asked unhurriedly, in a low, steady voice that carried an innate composure, standing out starkly against the backdrop of anger and oppression.
“Bone, who exactly made a move?”
He was curious—which old monster in Ming Province had struck, capable of shattering this old ghost Bone’s primordial spirit power?
On the surface, Bone appeared unchanged, but in reality, her inner energy was wildly disordered, churning like a raging sea. The primordial spirit power leaking from her Divine Mansion was weak and feeble, like a guttering candle in a storm, utterly devoid of its former strength.
“A damned Black Bird Guard!”
“Hmph! Bai Shen, this old woman has a feeling that this brat from the Black Bird Guard will absolutely become a mortal threat to our Holy Sect in the future.”
“Even if I have to throw away this old life, I will never let that little wretch go!”
No sooner had Bone finished speaking than she ignored Bai Shen entirely, her figure flickering like a ghost and vanishing instantly.
The moment she disappeared, the seven white candle stands suspended in mid-air underwent a bizarre transformation.
Fine cracks first spread across their surfaces, then they rapidly crumbled into powder.
Like white dust, they sifted down, scattering across the floor. Some of the fine powder lingered faintly in the air.
“A mortal threat?”
Bai Shen muttered to himself, his brow involuntarily furrowing, as if he found Bone’s words somewhat hard to believe.
He knew the Black Bird Guard’s true strength all too well.
Among the Black Bird Guard, only two people were worthy of their sect’s attention.
The Black Bird Guard Commander, Zi Yao—that woman’s martial prowess was shrouded in mystery, and no one had ever witnessed her true power.
Then there was that damn old Daoist, Zhang Daofeng—a Great Completion stage Divine Mansion cultivator, an old monster with one foot already in the Perfect Divine Mansion realm.
As the junior disciple of the Daoxu Temple’s abbot, he’d made the shocking decision to become some useless Vice Commander in the Black Bird Guard.
That damn old bastard always opposed our sect!
But what Bai Shen hadn’t expected was that, apart from those two, there was actually someone else in the Black Bird Guard who could make Bone suffer so greatly, even being regarded by her as a mortal threat.
Thinking of this, Bai Shen grew curious about the younger Black Bird Guard member himself.
That old ghost Bone was just as hot-tempered as ever, leaving without explaining anything properly.
This matter would still have to be brought up before Yan Lao, so he could report it to the Holy Mother Goddess.
Just as Bai Shen had made up his mind, a voice, ethereal and hollow, suddenly emanated from the woman’s statue atop the lotus dais.
“Bai Shen, you don’t need to concern yourself with this matter. Leave the Black Bird Guard situation to Bone to handle.”
“You are to depart immediately for Fu Province. That green snake is there—take it to Baidao Prefecture in An Province.”
“Inform it that the Nether Serpent is in Jinlin River, Taiping Town, Yunze County!”
The moment Bai Shen heard that familiar voice, the color drained from his face, and his expression turned panicked.
His entire body trembled violently as he mechanically turned his head, staring fixedly at the woman’s statue, his eyes filled with disbelief.
“Holy Mother!”
It was no wonder Bai Shen was so shocked—their sect’s Holy Mother was not someone just anyone could meet.
He recalled that the last time he had been granted an audience with the Holy Mother was when he had broken through to the Great Completion stage of the Divine Mansion realm and become the sect’s second Supreme Elder.
But that had been over a hundred years ago!
The only person in the sect permitted to attend the Holy Mother was one individual:
The first Supreme Elder, Bai Yan!
As the first Supreme Elder of the Pure World White Lotus Sect, Bai Yan possessed immense martial strength.
His power even surpassed the Heavenly Earth Force wielded by Divine Mansion realm martial artists—he was a terrifying old monster who had lived in the same era as the founding ancestor of the Great Xia imperial dynasty.
Bai Yan had lived for nearly two thousand years.
As for his martial realm, he had one foot already planted into the legendary realm of the Cave Void True Lord, having grasped a sliver of the intangible Law Force.
A Half-Step Cave Void True Lord!
The Heavenly Earth Force that Divine Mansion cultivators could command was as weak as an ant before Bai Yan, who had mastered a sliver of the Law Force.
As for why Bai Shen knew this so clearly—
It was because he had once, by chance, personally experienced Bai Yan’s methods.
Bai Yan had merely raised his hand lightly, the Law Force bending to his will, his words manifesting as reality. With that, he had casually ground Bai Shen’s proud primordial spirit power into ash!
From that day on, Bai Shen had respectfully addressed Bai Yan as “Yan Lao” and followed his lead without a shred of dissent.
Even a terrifying existence like Yan Lao served so humbly before the Holy Mother Sect Leader.
One could only imagine just how formidable the Holy Mother Sect Leader’s power truly was.
Without a doubt, if the sect leader could make Yan Lao—a Half-Step Cave Void existence—serve her so willingly, then the Holy Mother Sect Leader was most likely a legendary Cave Void True Lord.
At this moment, Bai Shen withdrew his divine sense from his Divine Mansion, allowing his incomplete body to slowly descend to the ground, a peculiar expression crossing his face.
It was an almost fanatical reverence and piety, as if he were listening to the highest of oracles.
“Yes! Bai Shen receives the Holy Mother’s divine decree!”
