A fierce need to take it rose through Venerable Starwick in an instant. Nothing showed on his face. He forced the restless surge down, and only the corner of his mouth slowly lifted into a curve that meant far more than it revealed.
Then favonovel.com asked in a flat tone, “Interesting. Truly interesting… A lowly True Immortal, a petty cultivator from the borderlands of the Lower Realm, actually managed to hide a sovereign relic of this level inside his spirit. That defies reason… I ask you both this… Have you thoroughly investigated this man’s origins and background? Are you certain favonovel.com has no hidden mighty adept behind him, no top order at his back?”
“Please put your mind at ease, Hall Master… His background has been thoroughly checked. There is absolutely no hidden danger!” Elder Emberlain immediately bent at the waist and answered, his tone locked firm as favonovel.com moved at once to cut away the concern.
“This man was nothing more than the leader of the Resistance in one corner of the Sixteenth Firmament. He struggled along alone, with no master order protecting him, no elders holding favonovel.com up, and no sect power favonovel.com could rely on. From beginning to end, favonovel.com was a wandering cultivator…”
“Before this, your servant had already made a move. I crushed his physical body by force, severed his foundation, and wiped out his followers. Now all that remains is this one isolated strand of spirit trapped inside the pearl. He has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no way to stir up any storm. He absolutely will not draw any foremost mighty adept to demand an accounting. You may refine favonovel.com without concern.”
Hearing that, Venerable Starwick fell silent for a moment. His fingertip tapped lightly against the armrest of the black throne. His gaze darkened as favonovel.com swiftly measured the risks against the gain.
A moment later, favonovel.com slowly rose to his feet. The golden halo around favonovel.com thickened by several degrees, and the pressure inside the hall climbed sharply with it.
“Since his background is clean, and the opportunity stands before us, there is no need for further hesitation…” Venerable Starwick gave the order in a deep voice, every word leaving no room for dispute. “Take the Soul-Vault Pearl to the central Soul-Refining Hall behind the high hall. Send the order down at once. Summon every serving Golden Immortal adept in the hall. All of them are to gather in the Soul-Refining Hall and join forces to activate the ultimate complete ancient Soul-Refining Grand Array.”
“Today, I will personally preside over it. I want to see with my own eyes exactly what kind of sovereign relic is hidden in the depths of this lower-realm stripling’s spirit, and exactly how solid that barrier truly is.”
***
Deep within the inner precincts of Pole Star Hall, the barriers stood dense and severe. Layer upon layer of wards cut the place off from the outside world. Ordinary cultivators could go their entire lives without being allowed within half a step of it.
There stood a special hall, ancient, solemn, and steeped in killing aura. It was none other than Pole Star Hall’s restricted stronghold the Soul-Refining Hall!
The place was vast in scale, its interior far larger than the former hidden purgatorial chamber of the Celestial Alliance. Its walls had been cast from soul-binding wardstone. It sealed away sound, locked down spirits, blocked light, and cut off aura.
It had been built specifically to interrogate prisoners, refine spirits, and suppress evil entities. The atmosphere inside pressed down cold and heavy, with killing aura coiling through every corner.
At the very center of the hall stood a natural blackstone altar, ten yards square. The stone was incredibly hard. It could withstand crushing pressure, flame, and the corrosion of the laws of the realm.
Across its surface, dense layers of elder soul-refining runework had been carved, stacked over one another and crossing in every direction. The patterns were obscure and difficult to read, feeding into one another in closed loops. Their power far surpassed the stripped-down version from the Sixteenth Firmament, and the killing energy had risen by more than double.
Along the four edges of the stone dais stood eight soul-binding pillars in perfect order. Each one was pitch-black from top to bottom, towering and thick. The pillars were rooted deep underground and linked to the leyline spiritual power below.
Beneath every pillar, a household Golden Immortal adept of Pole Star Hall had already taken a cross-legged seat in advance.
The eight Golden Immortals carried steady auras, their faces solemn. Spiritual power gathered around each of them, held at the edge of release, while their cultivation levels were arranged in staggered order. They ranged from Golden Immortal Level One to Golden Immortal Level Two. All of them were core fighting strength within Pole Star Hall, adepts who had guarded the hall for years and specialized in forming arrays together to refine spirits.
Venerable Starwick stepped into the core position directly before the stone dais. He stood straight, his presence pressing over the entire hall. The Soul-Vault Pearl hovered steadily at the very center of the dais, its spiritual light withdrawn, quiet and motionless.
Elder Emberlain and Elder Frostgrave stood to either side. They held their breath and stilled their focus, waiting in silence, their eyes fixed hard on the Soul-Vault Pearl as every bit of attention gathered around the coming attempt to break the barrier and seize the relic.
“Fellow adepts, hold nothing of your nascence back. Strike with full force. Activate the great array and refine the spirit!” Venerable Starwick commanded in a low voice, his tone heavy with authority.
The moment his voice fell, the eight Golden Immortals opened their eyes at the same time. Sharp light flashed in their gazes. Together, they raised their hands and formed seals, drawing out their own nascence-wrought spiritual power and pouring it without reserve into the soul-binding pillars beneath them.
Hum… Buzz!
In that instant, all eight stone pillars lit up with thick golden spiritual light. The light raced along the runework across the dais like a golden river, spreading over the entire stone platform in a blink. The closed loop took shape, and the great array activated at once.
In the next instant, flames surged up from the stone dais as if the air itself had split open. The fire roared hard and high, yet it carried none of the scent or smoke of ordinary burning.
This was no common fire. It was not the usual true flame born from spiritual power, either. It was the high-order pallid wraithfire, refined to an almost absolute purity and wrapped in Golden Immortal nascence law.
The flame was nearly transparent from end to end, without shape, without substance. But its heat was monstrous enough to twist the surrounding void, scorch a Golden Immortal soul, and melt down high-order spiritual treasures. Any ordinary spirit that touched it would dissolve on the spot. There would not even be time to struggle.
Venerable Starwick lifted his hand and brought two fingers together. A sharp golden gust tore through the air and struck the outer shell of the Soul-Vault Pearl with perfect precision.
A light crack sounded. The Soul-Vault Pearl’s hard, durable shell melted away in an instant, and the confinement around it was completely stripped open.
Jared’s violet soul-light now had nothing left to shield it. It lay bare in the vast sea of pallid wraithfire, forced straight into the agony of that absolute burning.
The sea of fire churned and folded over itself, wrapping layer after layer around him. Extreme heat and razor-edged laws descended at the same time.
Jared’s violet soul began to tremble violently, wavering as if it might scatter. The violet radiance flared and dimmed by turns, as though the fire might melt it down and tear it apart in the very next breath. It looked one touch from collapse.
At the critical moment, a gentle golden radiance suddenly lit up from the deepest part of the spirit. It carried a steadiness that seemed unchanged since ancient time.
The Aureate Codex answered at once and moved on its own to protect its master. Thick golden radiance spread out in an instant, wrapping Jared’s entire violet soul in a firm hold. A golden bulwark formed around it, unbreakable and complete, shutting every trace of the pallid wraithfire outside.
The raging waves of wraithfire slammed again and again into the golden bulwark. They struck like heaven-high seas crashing against a reef that had stood for 10 thousand years. The force looked terrifying, but the bulwark did not shift by even the slightest amount.
The instant the flame hit the golden radiance, it shattered, vanished, and scattered into nothing. It could not leave so much as a mark behind, let alone harm the spirit protected within.
One Golden Immortal held the center and directed the formation. The eight Golden Immortals supported favonovel.com with full force. Together the nine Golden Immortals drove the complete ancient Soul-Refining Grand Array, a level of battle power terrifying enough to refine the souls of peak Golden Immortal adepts with ease and sweep across every force in the Sixteenth Firmament.
Yet at this moment, in front of nothing more than a wisp of True Immortal soul and a single layer of golden aegis, they could do nothing. All that power spent itself for no result!
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