Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1463 - Silence!
Chapter 1463 – Silence!
Killing someone right in front of the palace lord was sheer audacity. This all happened within the Nine Dragon Palace’s own territory, a place ordinary people could never enter, which meant the attacker had to be someone from within the Nine Dragon Palace.
Huang stood some distance away, and by the time he moved, it was already too late. The palace lord had also begun to form seals with both hands, but he still fell a fraction of a step behind, because the attacker had already reached the Heaven Gaze Realm.
The arrow had already flown halfway across the hall, and another instant would be enough for it to pierce through Chang Wu’s neck, blasting apart his skull together with his soul sea and primordial spirit. At that point, searching Chang Wu’s soul would be completely meaningless.
The situation had reached a critical point, and Chang Wu had seemingly anticipated it long ago. He had already closed his eyes as he waited for death.
“Devour!” Just as the arrow was about to punch through Chang Wu’s throat, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron suddenly appeared and swallowed it whole.
That arrow embodied the laws of the Heaven Gaze Realm, and Liu Wuxie knew he was taking a gamble. If he failed to suppress it, the surging power inside might tear the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron apart from within.
Even so, Liu Wuxie didn’t truly panic, because Gong Gong had already awakened. Although Gong Gong had yet to step into the Heaven Gaze Realm, controlling those laws shouldn’t be difficult for him. As for the Universal Gourd, Liu Wuxie had left it with Bi Gongyu in the Heavenly Dao Society, so at this moment, he could only rely on the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron.
The instant the arrow landed inside the cauldron, a deafening rumble erupted, and the entire cauldron began to tremble violently.
“This is bad!” Liu Wuxie cursed inwardly. He had still underestimated the arrow’s power as it streaked like a comet toward the cauldron’s crystalline inner wall.
At the most critical moment, however, Gong Gong finally made his move and manifested the Witch Wheel Blade, slashing toward the arrow. When the arrow exploded, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron refined a strand of Heaven Gaze Realm law, and Gong Gong absorbed a portion of that power for himself.
At the same time, the palace lord struck, sealing off the surrounding space as he dashed toward the source of the attack. Yet he was still ultimately a step too slow, and the attacker had already escaped.
“Huang, sound the Myriad Bell!” the palace lord said, his expression so dark that murderous intent roared out from him.
This was the first time Liu Wuxie had ever seen a Quasi-Immortal truly enraged, and a single glance from him felt enough to kill experts at the Earth Immortal Realm.
Huang vanished the moment he received the order, and a minute later, a rapid sequence of bell chimes echoed across the entire Nine Dragon Palace.
Whether an elder was busy or in seclusion, every one of them jolted awake at the sound of the bell. Even elders stationed on distant planets heard the ringing directly in their ears.
“Something great happened to the sect! We need to get back now!”
The two elders on duty hastily handed the task of watering the spiritual herbs to the servants, then stepped into the teleportation array and rushed back to the Nine Dragon Palace.
Each herbal field had its own teleportation array for convenient travel. If any herbal field came under attack, the Nine Dragon Palace could also dispatch reinforcements far more quickly.
The Nine Dragon Palace had kept its main hall closed for a long time because the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain had stayed relatively peaceful in recent years, and all sects focused on their own development. That included the Heavenly Dragon Sect, and the last time the main hall opened had been when Liu Wuxie took first place in four events at the Myriad Race Ceremony.
“Wuxie, come with me,” the palace lord said. He didn’t give Liu Wuxie any chance to respond and swept him away with a single wave of his hand.
Moments later, they appeared outside the main hall, where many elders had already gathered, trading puzzled looks with no idea what had happened.
However, the elders who had previously received Liu Wuxie all gave him meaningful glances, noting that the bell had rung not long after his arrival in the Nine Dragon Palace.
The Myriad Bell only rang when the sect faced a true life-and-death crisis. The Nine Dragon Sect had existed for countless years and had only encountered such a crisis once in the distant past, when countless experts had surrounded them.
Back then, a disciple had gotten up at night to relieve himself and accidentally stumbled upon the intruders. He hadn’t had time to warn anyone, so he had sprinted back to his room, grabbed the bell ball, and struck it with all his strength. The bell’s peal had awakened all of the Nine Dragon Palace’s upper echelons, and only then had they managed to repel the invaders.
From that day onward, the story of the Myriad Bell had spread throughout the entire sect. Although the Myriad Bell had rung again over the years, it was usually only during grand ceremonies.
This time, however, was different. The Myriad Bell had rung ten times in a row, which meant the Nine Dragon Palace was once again facing a life-and-death crisis. In that old story, the disciple had struck the bell twice, and eight tolls alone symbolized a vital ceremony or occasion.
As more elders arrived one after another, Liu Wuxie followed the palace lord into the main hall. He sat beside the palace lord, his brows deeply furrowed. He had never expected to stumble into such a storm when he had only come to negotiate the purchase of spiritual herbs, and the situation felt almost comical.
In just fifteen minutes, the main hall filled to the brim with more than four hundred experts. Among them, sixty to seventy stood at the Heaven Gaze Realm, while the rest were at the Earth Immortal Realm. Only Liu Wuxie, at the third-level Void Realm, stood out like a lone crane among the crowd.
Each time an elder entered, he would first glance at Liu Wuxie seated beside the palace lord before taking his own seat.
The palace lord swept his gaze across the hall. After confirming that everyone had arrived, he waved his hand and shut the doors.
“Palace lord, why is Liu Wuxie here? He’s not someone of our Nine Dragon Palace,” an elder at the Heaven Gaze Realm said as he rose to his feet.
Even if something significant happened inside the Nine Dragon Palace, they believed they should handle it internally, so why had they brought in an outsider?
“Elder Li is right. Liu Wuxie is a disciple of the Heavenly Dragon Sect, and it’s not appropriate for him to be here,” another elder echoed.
They all understood that the discussion to come would involve the sect’s core matters, and having an outsider like Liu Wuxie present felt equivalent to exposing the Nine Dragon Palace’s secrets.
In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen elders stood up, all proposing that they drive Liu Wuxie out.
“Silence!” the palace lord roared, his murderous intent crashing down like a tidal wave.
All the elders in the main hall froze in shock, unable to understand the palace lord’s blazing temper today. He usually treated others with courtesy, and they couldn’t fathom why he would erupt over their suggestion to remove Liu Wuxie.
The elders who had spoken earlier hurriedly shut their mouths and sat back down.
“The Nine Dragon Palace is facing a major crisis, and you all still have the mood to argue over such pointless matters?” the palace lord asked coldly as he pulled back his killing intent.
“Major crisis?” Everyone looked even more bewildered. The Nine Dragon Palace was doing perfectly well, and they wondered who in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain could destroy them.
“Palace lord, has something happened?” Ding Yuan asked as he rose to his feet. He already had some guesses about how the Cloud Stone had appeared, why the spiritual herbs were withering, and who had taken Chang Wu away. He had begun to suspect that something serious had gone wrong within the Nine Dragon Palace itself.
When the palace lord waved his hand, Huang led Chang Wu into the main hall through a side entrance.
Chang Wu appeared haggard and utterly defeated. With his cultivation sealed, he could only stumble along as Huang dragged him like a prisoner.
“Elder Chang Wu!” the crowd cried out in unison.
Chang Wu had already reached the highest levels of the Earth Immortal Realm and held a lofty status within the Nine Dragon Palace, his standing equal to that of many of the elders present.
Liu Wuxie silently activated Ghost Eye and studied everyone’s expressions, noticing several pairs of eyes narrowing at the sight of Chang Wu. Without the slightest hesitation, he transmitted his observations quietly to the palace lord.
This was precisely why the palace lord had brought Liu Wuxie here: to rely on his wits to flush out the traitors hidden within the Nine Dragon Palace.
“Palace lord, what exactly happened?” Elder Li asked, rising to his feet once again. The sight of an Earth Immortal elder kneeling on the ground was shocking in itself.
“Chang Wu, you can speak now,” the palace lord said. With Huang standing guard beside him, no one could easily make another attempt on Chang Wu’s life.
“Palace lord, just kill me,” Chang Wu said as he kowtowed heavily. At this moment, all he wished for was death.
Everyone wore confused expressions, unable to understand why Chang Wu wanted to die so badly.
“Elder Chang, since you’re not afraid of death, why are you afraid of revealing the mastermind? Do you really want to see the Nine Dragon Palace fall apart?” the palace lord said in a persuading tone. He could tell Chang Wu still cared deeply for the Nine Dragon Palace, and only someone who had forced him into it could have driven the man to such desperation.
Chang Wu’s face contorted with pain. He understood that countless people would die if he spoke, yet just as many might die if he kept his mouth shut.
“Chang Wu, speak! What have you done?!” Ding Yuan urged as he stepped forward, trying to draw the answer out of him.
The elders nearby began whispering among themselves, their voices a low, anxious buzz.
“Elder Chang, if I’m not mistaken, there must be other elders controlled by the Serpent Insect like you in the Nine Dragon Palace. If you revealed the mastermind, everyone would die because of you, wouldn’t they?” Liu Wuxie asked, his gaze locked firmly on Chang Wu.
There was no way Chang Wu alone could shake the Nine Dragon Palace’s foundation, so there had to be other elders like him, all under the control of the Serpent Insect.
If Liu Wuxie hadn’t interfered today, the Serpent Insect would already have claimed Chang Wu’s life.
Chang Wu slowly raised his head and looked at Liu Wuxie with a complicated expression. That look alone amounted to an admission.
“What? The Serpent Insect controls elders in the Nine Dragon Palace?” An uproar erupted throughout the main hall. They couldn’t comprehend how something as vicious as the Serpent Insect could appear in the Nine Dragon Palace.
Once a Serpent Insect burrowed into someone, their life and death no longer lay in their own hands.
“You can rest easy on that. The palace lord has already sent someone to dissolve the Serpent Insect, and it won’t be long before we find everyone it has infested,” Liu Wuxie said.”You can rest easy on that. The palace lord has already sent someone to dissolve the Serpent Insect, and it won’t be long before we find everyone it has infested,” Liu Wuxie said.
Upon hearing this, a faint glimmer of hope finally appeared in Chang Wu’s eyes. He asked, “Really?”
“I, Liu Wuxie, have always stood by my word. I have never joked around with human lives at stake,” Liu Wuxie replied righteously. This was the reason the palace lord had ordered the doors to be closed, to prevent any news from leaking out.
That also meant no information could get in.
Chang Wu turned toward the palace lord, who nodded in acknowledgement.
By now, everyone in the Nine Dragon Palace had gathered on the martial field, each holding a cup of water brewed with Bodhi Root. There was no harm in drinking it, whether or not they were under the control of Serpent Insects, and the efficiency of the response was exactly what one would expect from a sect with a million-year legacy.
“Chang Wu, how dare you betray the Nine Dragon Palace!” A figure flashed, disappearing from his seat and reappearing beside Chang Wu, his palm chopping down in the same instant. The speed of the attack caught everyone completely off guard.
Huang, who stood at the pinnacle of the Earth Immortal Realm, was sent flying. The attacker was an elder at the Heaven Gaze Realm.
As that palm descended, Chang Wu exploded into blood and fragments.
The palace lord remained seated, motionless, and watched as they killed Chang Wu right in front of him. Everything unfolded too quickly, and with the Heaven Gaze Realm only half a step away from the Quasi-Immortal Realm, even a Quasi-Immortal might not have been able to save Chang Wu in time.
