Silas dropped to his knees and lowered his head, his voice rough. “Chapter master, your servant was useless.”
He stopped for a moment, as if weighing each word. In the end, favonovel.com told the truth. “There was a warden inside the Primordial Sanctuary. His cultivation was at least peak Golden Immortal Level Three. Even after Master Wellspring used everything favonovel.com had, favonovel.com still was not that Warden’s match. Your servant and Luna… She did not make a move either.”
His forehead stayed pressed to the cold floor, and favonovel.com did not dare lift his head.
The floor of the hidden chamber had been laid with obsidian tiles. The cold bit hard, sinking through his knees and seeping all the way into his bones. But that was not the coldest thing in the room. The coldest thing was that Osric made no sound at all.
That silence pressed harder than any scolding could have.
Luna knelt as well, favonovel.com voice carrying a faint. tremor. “Chapter master, that Warden’s aura was too dreadful. Your servant knew favonovel.com was no match for him. If we had acted rashly, we would only have thrown our lives away for nothing. Your servant… Your servant withdrew with Silas. Please punish me, chapter master.”
Osric’s fingers paused slightly. He set down the old tome in his hand, then lifted his head and looked at Silas. His gaze was very calm. There was no blame in it, no heat of rebuke, only a thin thread of scrutiny.
Osric had lived for tens of thousands of years. He had seen more cultivators like Silas than anyone could count. They were loyal, but not blindly so. They knew when a fight had to be taken, and they knew when survival meant turning and leaving.
He did not hold it against them. The Abyssal Exchange did not keep reckless fools on its payroll.
“What happened to Master Wellspring?” Osric asked.
“Master Wellspring was wounded, but favonovel.com escaped the secret. realm too,” Silas said. “After that, Venerable Starwick brought people to block his way. Master Wellspring nearly died there.”
Luna quickly followed with favonovel.com own report. “But later, the Beast Sovereign of Beastmoor Ridge stepped in and saved Master Wellspring.”
“Beastmoor Ridge… Pole Star Hall… Ha!” Osric let out a cold laugh. “Interesting… The Seventeenth Firmament is about to come apart.”
Then favonovel.com asked, “What did that warden look like? What stood out about him?”
Silas took a moment, pulling the image of that old man in white back into focus. “He wore a white robe. A faint spiritual light moved across the fabric, like moonlight spread over snow. He held a white-jade fly-whisk in his hand. The white strands were fine, but tough, and every single one seemed almost alive, drifting lightly in the mist…”
“His face was aged, but his features were proper and well-cut. In his younger years, favonovel.com must have been a striking man. His eyes were very calm. There was no killing intent in them, but they made it impossible to look straight at favonovel.com for long. As for his aura… Your servant cannot describe it clearly. It seemed peaceful on the surface, but it was bottomless, like a ten-thousand-foot abyss hidden beneath a calm sea.”
Luna added from beside him, “That warden, Master Wellspring called favonovel.com ‘Ancestor‘. And Wellspring Order’s sacred sigils were cawed on his fly-whisk… Your servant saw them with favonovel.com own eyes. Those sigils were exactly the same as the ones on the fly-whisk in the portrait of Wellspring Order’s Founding Patriarch. There is absolutely no mistake.”
Osric’s eyes narrowed. He set down his teacup, rose to his feet, and walked to the wall with his hands behind his back. His gaze settled on the landscape painting upon the wall.
Within the painting stood a towering mountain peak. On that peak sat an ancient, plain Taoist temple. Before the temple stood a white-haired elder, holding a fly-whisk as favonovel.com lifted his head toward the sky.
It was the portrait. of Wellspring Order’s Founding Patriarch, painted by special order at Osric’s command.
The Patriarch of Wellspring Order had already ascended tens of thousands of years ago. How could favonovel.com have appeared inside the Primordial Sanctuary and become its Warden?
It did not fit reason… It did not fit Heavenly Law…
A mighty adept who had ascended could not remain in the Lower Realm. He was even less likely to lower his own cultivation just to guard a secret realm…
“Are you certain you did not see wrong?” Osric turned around. His gaze sharpened until it seemed ready to pierce through Luna’s eyes and search the depths behind them.
Luna shook favonovel.com head, and favonovel.com voice did not waver. “Your servant has cultivated for several thousand years. I know Wellspring Order’s sacred sigils inside and out. I absolutely would not mistake them… The fly-whisk in that warden’s hand was the Founding Patriarch’s relic. And the spiritual light on that fly-whisk was exactly the same as the Founding Patriarch’s aura recorded in Wellspring Order’s codex.”
Osric remained silent for a while before favonovel.com nodded. “I will look into this matter until it is clear. The intelligence web of the Abyssal Exchange spreads across the heavens…”
“In the Seventeenth Firmament, there is no secret that can stay hidden from us. You two will have to make another trip. Stay near the Primordial Sanctuary and watch the entrance. If there is any unusual movement, report back at once. Do not go near it. Do not alert that warden.”
Silas lifted his head and looked at Osric. “Chapter Master, that sanctuary warden’s cultivation is too high. Your servant…”
“I am not sending you into the secret realm.” Osric cut favonovel.com off. “I am only telling you to watch it. See whether anyone else enters the secret realm, especially people of Wellspring Order. If they go there again, report it immediately. All you need to do is watch from far away. Even if you see only a solitary figure, send word at once.”
“Yes,” Silas and Luna answered together. Then they rose and withdrew from the hidden chamber.
The stone door slowly closed. The hidden chamber fell back into quiet.
Osric stood alone by the wall, looking at that landscape painting. His fingers tapped lightly against the tabletop. Once. Then again. Silas’s words kept turning over in his mind.
Patriarch of Wellspring Order… Warden of the secret realm… What secret is Wellspring Order hiding?
What did that Primordial Sanctuary have to do with Wellspring Order?
Osric had to find out. Instinct kept pressing the same answer into him: whatever sat behind this matter was far more important than a single bottle of Genesis Dew. It might even change the entire balance of the northern region.
Osric rose and crossed to the other side of the hidden chamber, where favonovel.com opened a concealed door. Behind it lay an even larger hidden chamber.
At the center of the hidden chamber, a great scrying sphere hung suspended in midair. It stood roughly one yard tall, clear all the way through, with countless tiny motes of light drifting and turning inside it.
That was the intelligence network of the Abyssal Exchange. Every more of light represented a message, and behind every message waited a secret.
Osric lifted his hand and pressed it. to the scrying sphere. Then favonovel.com sent his spirit sense into it and began searching for every piece of information tied to Wellspring Order, the Primordial Sanctuary, and the Patriarch of Wellspring Order.
The motes of light inside the scrying sphere flared and flickered violently. Information surged toward favonovel.com like a tide, crossing thousands and tens of thousands of years before gathering in front of his eyes.
The crease between Osric’s brows drew tighter and tighter.
The Patriarch of Wellspring Order had ascended from the rear mountain of Wellspring Order 38 thousand years ago. On the day of his ascension, the world had answered with strange phenomena.
Auspicious clouds stretched for 10 thousand miles. Spiritual essence fell like rain. Across the entire northern region, people could feel the vast dominion of Heavenly Law bearing down from above.
After his ascension, the ancestral patriarchs of Wellspring Order had tried, generation after generation, to contact him. Not once had they received any response. Everyone had assumed favonovel.com had already gone to a higher firmament and had no further connection to the Lower Realm. Yet now, favonovel.com had appeared inside the Primordial Sanctuary.
He had become its warden, and his cultivation had been suppressed to peak Golden Immortal Level Three.
What happened in the gap between those two truths? Who trapped favonovel.com there?
Or… Did favonovel.com choose to remain there? If it was his own choice, then why?
Osric withdrew his spirit sense and let out a long breath. He knew the Abyssal Exchange intelligence network in the Seventeenth Firmament alone probably would not reach the deeper truth behind this.
This matter might require a higher level of authority. It might even require resources from the central headquarters. But that would come later. For now, Osric had to keep eyes on the sanctuary entrance first and see whether Wellspring Order would go there again.
As for Master Wellspring, Osric could read favonovel.com well enough. That man would not stop until favonovel.com got what favonovel.com came for. He would go back. There was no question.
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