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

The black jade wine cup paused for three breaths in that pale hand.

The liquor sloshed a second time, then a third time.

Then the hand suddenly swung forward.

The wine cup flew out with a trail of black smoke, crashing onto the second step of the bone staircase. Before it could even make a full cracking sound, the entire cup shattered into powdery fragments.

Debris flew everywhere, and several angular black jade shards grazed the cheeks of the two celestial beings in the front row, cutting two shallow cuts.

No one dared to reach out and wipe it.

Immediately following the sound of a wine cup shattering, a roar burst forth from the black mist.

"waste!"

"They're all a bunch of good-for-nothings!"

The sound wasn't loud.

But every word made the stone walls of the entire hall tremble.

With this roar, an overwhelming pressure poured down from the direction of the throne, more than ten times greater than the combined pressure of the previous twenty-six Dou Zun.

The oppressive aura swept through the hall not from top to bottom, but from inside to outside.

It seeped directly into the bones of everyone present.

The Dou Zun on both sides could not hold on any longer.

The first to kneel down were the three lowest-ranking one-star Dou Zun in the front row, and the dull thuds of their knees hitting the gravel ground came almost simultaneously.

Then came the second row, the third row, and so on, one after another falling down.

The entire process took less than two breaths. Twenty-six Dou Zun knelt on one knee on both sides of the main hall, sweat dripping from their foreheads and hitting the ground with extremely soft and dense sounds.

The situation on the high platform wasn't much better.

The celestial being on the left in the front row gripped the back of the chair, his knuckles turning white, and his body bent over.

The two figures in the back row, already huddled deep in the shadows, shrank even further now.

Hunyuan stood on the first platform below the throne, his legs trembling, but he did not kneel.

His gray eyes were half-closed, and the veins on the back of his hands bulged out one by one.

His cultivation as a Great Celestial Venerable held up his knees, but his face was covered in cold sweat.

Only three people remained standing in the entire hall.

The one on the throne.

Soul Abyss.

And there's that collateral relative in white below the steps.

Soul Feather's condition is terrible.

Without any cultivation, his body was utterly powerless against this level of pressure. His bones were cracking, his knees were bending, and his chest was aching from the pressure.

But the golden feathers inside the white feather fan stretched out a very thin membrane of light on his body, like an invisible skeleton supporting him.

He did not kneel down.

His legs were trembling, but he did not kneel.

The voice, still filled with rage, emerged again from the black mist. This time it wasn't a roar, but a chilling sound that was even more terrifying than a roar.

"Three months."

"Eight operations."

"All eight top-secret routes were leaked in advance."

"All eight attacking teams were intercepted and killed en route."

"Of the twelve Dou Zun, how many have returned?"

No one in the main hall dared to speak.

Hunyuan opened his mouth, but kept his voice very low.

"Lord of the Palace..."

"I didn't ask you."

The voice from the throne cut him off.

"I'm asking everyone here."

"The routes of the eight top-secret operations carried out by the Heavenly Gang Hall against the ancient clans were all known in advance. The timing of the attacks, the personnel composition, and the direction of the march were all clearly known to the enemy."

"Tell me, what's this called?"

silence.

No one dared to answer that question.

Because everyone knows what the answer is, but no one dares to say those two words out loud.

The black mist churned for a while.

"Since you are afraid to speak, I will."

A pale hand emerged from the mist, pointing a finger in a certain direction from the main hall.

"There is a traitor in the Heavenly Gang Hall."

When those four words landed, at least five of the twenty-six kneeling Dou Zun trembled.

It wasn't because I was scared.

These four words struck a nerve and hit the most terrifying nerve.

The meaning of the word "traitor" in the Hall of Heavenly Gang is clear to everyone kneeling here.

The most serious crime under Hun Miesheng's rule was not desertion or disobeying orders, but leaking secrets.

The last person found to have leaked information didn't even survive.

"Soul Offering".

The voice on the throne called out a name.

"Come to the front."

A figure flickered in the middle of the third row on the right, where people were kneeling.

He was a middle-aged Dou Zun, wearing a dark red robe in the style of the Tian Gang Hall, with two thin silver stripes on his shoulders, the insignia of the Tian Gang Hall's Intelligence Division.

His face turned ashen when he heard his name.

"Lord of the Palace..."

"I want you to come to the front."

The voice wasn't loud, but the oppressive aura surrounding him intensified.

Hun Feng rubbed his knees on the ground twice, then struggled to his feet and walked step by step down from the platform.

He walked very slowly, and as he passed by the other Dou Zun, no one looked at him.

Everyone had their heads down, and everyone was thankful that they weren't the ones called out.

Hun Feng stopped in front of the steps of the high platform, less than three steps away from Hun Yu.

His peripheral vision caught sight of the young man in white standing beside him, a flicker of confusion crossing his eyes, but it was quickly overshadowed by the overwhelming fear pressing down on him.

He knelt down on one knee again, lowering his head as low as possible.

"Your subordinate... Your subordinate is here."

The black mist above the throne dispersed somewhat.

It's not completely scattered; it's just that a hole has been opened from the front.

Half of a face was visible behind the fog.

From his angle, he could see the Soul Feather perfectly.

It was a face whose age was hard to guess, with deep features and a jawline as hard as a stone carving.

His skin was as white as his hand, so white it was almost bloodless.

But the most uncomfortable thing is the eyes.

A pair of vertical pupils.

The pupils were blood red, and the irises were black, like two stones nailed into the eye sockets.

There was no human warmth in his vertical pupils.

Those eyes were fixed on the kneeling soul offering at the bottom of the steps, and there were only two things in them.

Anger and murderous intent.

Hunyu twirled the fan halfway in his hand, then let it hang at his side, quietly watching everything unfold.

The Bagua diagram in his mind had already started spinning.