At the same time, the pressure carried within that spiritual essence had grown far stronger, far sharper. It was no longer the mild, frail cultivation power of the Sixteenth Firmament.
This was top-tier energy laced with the order of a higher world and the domineering pulse of nascence itself. Even without form, it pressed down until his spirit sank slightly under the weight.
More importantly, deep inside that spiritual essence, a kind of nascence power flowed and spread unchecked. It stood beyond ordinary spiritual power, beyond the cultivation of the mundane world. Ancient, timeworn, and heavy with authority, it carried its own binding force from the higher laws of the world.
Jared understood at once. He locked onto the source of that power in the same instant, and a hard shadow passed through his gaze.
Golden Immortal Law…
His cultivation had stopped at the True Immortal realm. He had never stepped across the Golden Immortal threshold, and favonovel.com had never had the chance to personally comprehend or cultivate the Golden Immortal Great Path. But favonovel.com had seen too much on the road that had brought favonovel.com here. More than that, Aldric, an old and seasoned powerhouse, still sat within his consciousness field.
By now, Jared knew Golden Immortal Law well enough to recognize it with a single glance.
By then, Jared had already made an exact judgment. He had long since left the Sixteenth Firmament. Aurelius and Cassian, the two Golden Immortals, had forcibly carried favonovel.com into a higher firmament of the celestial realm.
The situation had grown more dangerous. His position had become more passive with every breath. Even so, Jared’s spirit did not scatter, and his mind did not lurch out of place. He knew exactly what favonovel.com had left.
Only a wisp of soul remained. He had no physical body to rely on, no outside help to lean on, and no freedom to move. If favonovel.com let himself grow restless now, favonovel.com would only disturb his own mind, ruin his footing, and add risk for nothing. Only by meeting it with a level head could favonovel.com find that single thread of life.
Without revealing the slightest movement, favonovel.com drove his faint spirit sense with an extremely steady will and sent a silent transmission into the depths of the consciousness field.
“Aldric…”
A moment after the call faded, a remnant will answered slowly from the hidden recesses of the consciousness field. It sounded faint and insubstantial, its aura weak, but it remained even and condensed.
“I’m here…” Aldric’s voice carried a trace of exhaustion favonovel.com could not quite cover.
The Aureate Codex had protected him, but Aldric’s remnant soul was too weak. Enduring soul-refinement had worn favonovel.com down badly.
After a brief pause, his tone sank low. “I have already examined the surrounding aura of the world. The density of the spiritual essence has surged, and the level of the laws of the realm has risen by a wide margin… The drifting Golden Immortal law-fragments are dense and abundant. Taking everything together, the place we are in now is at least the lands of the Seventeenth Firmament… There is no mistake.”
So… The Seventeenth Firmament…
Jared repeated it silently within himself.
Elder Emberlain and Elder Frostgrave had joined forces before and launched a furious assault. They had used every method they had, yet they had still failed to break through the Aureate Codex‘s absolute defense. They could not refine Jared’s spirit, and they could not seize the relic.
They refused to let the matter end there. They would not let a sovereign relic slip away for nothing. At the same time, they could not bear to kill Jared outright and cut off their own hope. Nor were they willing to spend their own nascence in a long, grinding assault.
After turning it over from every angle, they had only one scheme left. They would carry Jared across realms into the higher Seventeenth Firmament, seek shelter with the foremost Golden Immortal adepts here, and borrow other hands to break the defense together, refine his spirit, and seize the Aureate Codex.
Their calculation was precise. Their intent was poisonous to the bone.
“The situation is dangerous. Powerful enemies are everywhere. This place is packed with adepts far beyond anything in the Sixteenth Firmament…” Jared sent the words in a low transmission. His tone stayed flat, but something heavy ran beneath it.
“There is no need to lose your footing. No need to dwell on it.” Aldric answered at once, steadying him. The intent behind his voice held firm, giving Jared something solid to stand on.
“Remember this… Our greatest reliance has never been outside strength or outside help. It has never been some lucky chance or stray opportunity. It is the peerless relic buried deep within your spirit, the Aureate Codex…”
“Its defensive barrier is unbreakable. It carries the power to repel the Myriad Arts and withstand every disaster. Ordinary Golden Immortals could touch it and still fail to harm it in the slightest. Even higher Golden Immortals of the Seventeenth Firmament, attacking together through a formation, might not be able to shake it at all, let alone break through it completely.”
Aldric paused, and when his voice came again, every word landed with weight. “The only thing you need to do right now is draw in all of your spirit sense, press down every stray disturbance, and lie low while you nurture your spirit. Restore your soul-nascence… Do not expose any unusual movement on your own. Do not draw the attention of powerful adepts outside. Settle yourself. Stay hidden. Wait for the best moment to break free and strike back. Once that moment comes, we will have our way through this.”
Jared gave a silent nod and said nothing more. He pressed down every last stray thought, withdrew the faint spirit sense favonovel.com had released, and stabilized the shape of his spirit.
He remained hidden within the Aureate Codex’s golden radiance, sealed away from every probe from the outside.
Quietly, favonovel.com sensed the movements beyond the barrier, watched the situation change, and waited for the opening that would let favonovel.com break the trap.
Outside the bead, storms gathered and powerful enemies converged. Inside the bead, everything stood as steady as a mountain, the spirit anchored and unmoved.
Elder Emberlain and Elder Frostgrave tore through the air at full speed the entire way. They did not pause for even a breath. They did not spare a glance for the scenery beneath them. Their focus remained fixed on the northern region.
For a full two hours, they raced across tens of thousands of kilometers of vast mountains and rivers. They swept past the Wastelands, perilous peaks, cloud-choked valleys, and places thick with hidden spiritual essence.
At last, at the far edge of the sky ahead, a colossal outline appeared, towering, immense, and sharp enough to pierce the clouds.
It was a supreme Celestial Palace standing atop a 10,000-yard solitary peak. The peak thrust straight into the violet-blue heavens. Its slopes were steep and dangerous, its cliff walls wrapped in spiritual light. The mountain itself carried the pressure of the world, shutting out ordinary currents of air, its aura vast and heavy to the extreme.
Across the mountain summit, the Celestial Palace spread in layered halls, grand and imposing. It overlooked the boundless earth below and pressed its weight over every cultivator in the northern region.
This was the northern heartland of the Seventeenth Firmament. It was the celestials’ highest seat of power in the Seventeenth Firmament, Pole Star Hall!
All of Pole Star Hall had been built and carved from ten-thousand-year warm jade and innate spirit jade. The jade was smooth, luminous, and white. Year after year, it absorbed the world’s spiritual essence, and after ages of accumulation, it carried its own spiritual light and treasure aura.
The beams, pillars, carved patterns, upturned eaves, bracket sets, and domed rooflines were all wrapped in gilded ornamentation.
Sunlight spilled down, and gold shimmered everywhere, answering the radiance of three blazing suns. The whole palace stood rich, commanding, solemn, and grave, carrying both the vast grandeur of the world and the supreme dignity of the celestials.
One glance was enough to make anyone lower their eyes. Staring straight at it no longer seemed like something a person should dare to do.
Around the outer perimeter of the palace, the ninefold Saintlight Ward had been laid down layer upon layer. Each layer locked into the next, ring after ring, beginning and ending as one vast pattern that covered the entire mountain summit.
Deep within the pattern of every ward layer, Golden Immortal nascence sigils had been engraved. Pure Golden Immortal Law-force poured through them, giving the wards both attack and defense, with killing power beyond compare.
If ordinary True Immortal cultivators dared step within 100 yards of the palace without permission, the guards would not even need to move. The holy light erupting from the ward would grind them into dust in an instant. Spirit destroyed. Body gone. Not even bones left behind.
Even lower Golden Immortals, if they forced their way in carelessly, would be trapped by layer after layer of wards and badly injured, with no easy path back out.
Directly above Pole Star Hall, in the void, a perfectly round golden orb hung suspended without end. It shone with dazzling brilliance, slowly turning as streams of spiritual light poured across the eight directions.
This was Pole Star Hall‘s hall-guarding relic, the Pole Star Reliquary.
It had been passed down from the hands of an ancient Arch-Immortal grand adept, weathered by ages beyond counting, its true power impossible to measure. It could guard the hall, repel enemies, amplify the formation, and stabilize fortune. It was the central reliance that had kept Pole Star Hall secure for a thousand years and allowed it to stand among the top powers of the northern region.
The two of them slowly reined in the force of their flight. Their figures landed steadily on the 10,000-meter alabaster forecourt directly before Pole Star Hall.
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