In the great hall of Pole Star Hall, the emberstone crystals set into the dome poured light through the entire great hall. A golden glow moved beneath the vault, washing over the solitary figure on the black throne and coating favonovel.com in a cold metallic sheen.
Stone pillars stood in silence along both sides of the great hall. Across their shafts, the celestial conquest reliefs shifted in and out of sight under the play of light and shadow, as if they were bearing silent witness to the weight and killing edge of this moment.
Venerable Starwick sat on the black throne, his face as dark as the sky before a storm. His fingers tapped lightly against the armrest.
Once. Then again. Then again. The sound traveled through the empty great hall, dull and heavy, like the tolling of a funeral bell.
Kneeling before favonovel.com were the four Golden Immortal elders, Elder Rowe, Elder Pennyworth, Elder Sunter, and Elder Leary. Their foreheads stayed pressed to the floor. None of them dared lift their heads. None of them dared make a sound. Cold sweat kept breaking out across their bodies.
The floor tiles of the great hall had been forged from meteoric frost-iron. The cold bit deep, seeping through their knees and into their marrow, but not one of them dared move. They had already been kneeling there for a full one hour.
One hour earlier, they had brought back the news. The Soul-Vault Pearl had shattered, and Jared’s soul had escaped!
The four Golden Immortal elders had chased it for three days and three nights. They had not caught up. All they brought back was exhaustion in every limb and a gut twisted tight with what their failure meant.
They knelt there until their knees had gone numb. But the pain in their knees was no longer the worst of it. What clawed inside them hurt worse than the frost-iron under their bones.
The hall doors were shut tight. Even the watch-standing cultivators outside did not dare make the slightest sound. The whole great hall felt like an ice cellar, with only the muffled tap of Venerable Starwick’s fingers on the armrest sounding again and again.
“You are telling me… The spirit escaped?” Venerable Starwick’s voice was calm. It was so calm that the temperature in the whole great hall seemed to drop by several degrees.
Everyone present understood what had been pressed beneath that calm. It was a sky-high blaze held back for one more breath, waiting to pour out.
Elder Rowe forced himself to speak. His voice came out hoarse, with a tremor favonovel.com could not fully hold down. He had lived for more than ten thousand years and had fought through countless life-and-death battles. No enemy had ever made favonovel.com shrink back.
But at this moment, kneeling beneath the black throne, the thing pounding at the bottom of his chest would not be pressed down. Because the person seated above favonovel.com was not only his Hall Master. He was also a Level Three Golden Immortal adept, someone who could crush Elder Rowe to death with a single finger.
“Hall Master, your servant is incompetent. That soul had the Aureate Codex’s protection around it, and its speed was too fast. We chased it for three days and three nights, but we could not catch up. Your servant deserves death. Please punish me, Hall Master!” His forehead struck the floor tiles hard, landing with a dull, heavy thud.
The remaining three elders hurriedly kowtowed as well. Their foreheads hit the ground one after another, the sounds rolling through the empty great hall like drumbeats.
“You chased it for three days and three nights and did not catch up?” The corner of Venerable Starwick’s mouth twitched.
Slowly, favonovel.com rose from the black throne. His golden robe dragged across the floor with a soft, rasping rustle. He walked down the steps one at a time. Every step seemed to land on the elders’ chests.
He stopped in front of Elder Rowe and stood over him, looking down from above.
“The four of you are Golden Immortals. You chased a wisp of soul for three days and three nights, and you still could not catch it?” His voice did not rise, but every word came forced through his teeth, squeezed out one by one, with something held down so hard it was about to crack.
His hand slowly closed into a fist. His nails bit into his palm, as if in the next breath all that pressure would turn into a single palm strike crashing down.
Elder Pennyworth hurriedly knocked his forehead to the floor. Bone met the ice-cold tiles with a dull thud, and his words came out unsteady, loaded with blame favonovel.com could not push anywhere but onto himself.
“Hall Master, that fugitive soul was simply too fast! Your servants already used everything we had to chase it, but it seemed able to sense where we were. Every time we were about to catch up, it suddenly changed direction and vanished without leaving a trace. It was not that your servants held anything back. We truly had no strength left to close the gap!”
“Sense your position?” Venerable Starwick’s eyes narrowed slightly, and a cold glint cut across their depths. In his golden pupils, the flame seemed to leap.
He bent down and stared straight into Elder Pennyworth’s eyes, asking each word as if it had weight. “It only has a wisp of soul left. No fleshly body. No spiritual power. How could it possibly sense your position?”
Elder Pennyworth’s body gave a faint tremor. Cold sweat slid from his forehead down the tip of his nose and dropped onto the floor tiles with a tiny tap. He did not dare raise his head. He did not dare meet that gaze. Even his breathing was pressed down until it barely made a sound.
There was no answer favonovel.com could give. The question had already gone beyond common sense!
Elder Rowe hesitated, then said in a low voice, “Your servant guesses it may have been the codex’s protective golden radiance. It must have some ability we do not understand. It can sense danger in advance, then control the spirit to dodge.”
He paused, then added, “Hall Master, the codex’s level is far beyond anything any of us can comprehend. Its abilities are not something we are qualified to measure. It could withstand the Golden Immortal Soul-Refining Grand Array. It could release an aura that heavily wounded you, Hall Master… It could carry a wisp of soul through the Seventeenth Firmament for three days and three nights without being destroyed… For a relic like that, having one or two abilities we do not know about would be completely normal.”
Venerable Starwick said nothing for a moment. His finger stopped once, then resumed its tapping. He straightened and walked back to the black throne, then slowly sat down.
His golden robe spilled down both sides of the black throne like two golden waterfalls. His fingers settled back onto the armrest and began tapping again, one beat after another, slow and heavy.
Elder Rowe had spoken the truth. The codex’s level stood far beyond Venerable Starwick’s understanding, far beyond every treasure favonovel.com had ever seen.
It could block the Soul-Refining Grand Array driven by the nine Golden Immortals working together. It could release a single strand of aura and heavily wound his spirit. It could carry a frail remnant of Jared’s soul through the seventeenth Firmament, where the laws of the realm ran wild, for three days and three nights without being extinguished. For a relic like that, abilities beyond common sense were not strange at all.
But there was no place in favonovel.com that could accept it. He was the Hall Master of Pole Star Hall, a foremost adept in the northern region of the Seventeenth Firmament. Anything favonovel.com wanted had always ended up in his hands.
“Keep searching…” His voice came out cold, so cold the air within the great hall seemed to congeal around it. “If he’s alive, bring favonovel.com before me. If he’s dead, bring me the body. The spirit ran, so go find it. If you cannot find it, then none of you need to come back.”
That was not an order. It was a sentence!
The four elders jolted at the same time, and more cold sweat broke across their foreheads. Not one of them dared say half a word against it.
They answered together, “Yes!”
Their voices echoed through the great hall, tight and shaking, weighted with what they could not swallow and the thin edge of hope giving way. They understood the statutes of Pole Star Hall better than anyone. When the Hall Master said there was no need to come back, favonovel.com meant exactly that. It did not mean leaving Pole Star Hall. It meant vanishing from this world.
The four of them rose and bowed low before backing out of the great hall. Their steps came down heavy. Their robes dragged across the floor with a dry, whispering scrape.
The palace doors slowly closed behind them, cutting their figures off from the chamber within. Within the great hall, silence settled back into place.
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