I have to say, I'm ashamed.

When Xu Lai stripped my divine soul, I didn't even have time to use my trump card.

She didn't believe Xu Lai was The Supreme Emperor, nor did she want to. But she absolutely refused to remain in the Candle Flame Cage any longer. She had to entice him into using that trump card. She was seeking a one-in-a-billion chance of escape!

It was a crude taunt.

But Xu Lai seemed not to have noticed.

The Heavenly Dao waved a hand, and a storage ring appeared above the clouds. Being the Heavenly Dao, it easily erased the Divine Sense mark on the ring and emptied its contents.

Then, he froze. Xu Lai's gaze turned cold.

On the ground lay over a hundred corpses, men and women, all of whom looked to be no older than twenty. Their eyes were all closed. Yet from their bodies, Xu Lai could sense an indescribable despair and sorrow. Before they died, they had endured immense torture and pain.

The most crucial point was that they were all ordinary people!

"A sentence of one hundred thousand years of Soul Lighting is still too light a punishment for your crimes," Xu Lai said, his face devoid of expression.

He was the Emperor of the Human Race! He wasn't one to be overprotective; he wouldn't concern himself with the life or death of a Human Race Cultivator at the first level of Qi Training, or even that of a Martial Artist. But ordinary people, those who had never set foot on the path of Cultivation, were Xu Lai's reverse scale.

Touch it, and you die.

The Heavenly Dao also knew what a towering rage lay beneath The Supreme Emperor's calm facade. He didn't dare say more and proceeded to bury the corpses at the peak of Mount Fu. Burying them here, where they would lie atop the suppressed body of No-Face, was a small, grim form of solace.

"Which one is the trump card Jing Ke left for you?"

There were thousands of miscellaneous items on the ground, at least ten thousand of them. The Heavenly Dao's Divine Sense swept over them roughly but found nothing of note.

With an upward flick of his finger, Xu Lai levitated a Jade Pendant, which spun continuously on his fingertip. The jade was plain and looked entirely unremarkable, the kind one might buy from a street stall. Upon closer inspection, however, one could see an extremely vague character etched upon it, almost weathered away by time—Ji!

Ji. It was a surname. This was the surname the Heavenly Dao had spoken of earlier—that of the Royal Clan of the Moon.

Furthermore, based on what Jing Ke had originally said in the cave in Sakura Country—that he would 'wait in the Nine Kings' Palace for an explanation from the Ji Family'—Xu Lai made a deduction.

The Ji Family. Perhaps they are the descendants of the nine Emperor Realm experts who established the Nine Kings' Palace. Whether they are from the direct line or a branch family is impossible to know for now.

Xu Lai gently caressed the Jade Pendant, connecting all the clues in his mind. Still, he felt something was missing. It was like a fishing net that had all the materials but lacked the main cord to string them all together. Without that cord, the net was useless, unable to catch the fish hiding beneath the seemingly calm surface of the sea.

"This is the trump card Jing Ke left for me," No-Face said, her voice a mixture of tension and anticipation. "He told me that if I ever faced danger, I should crush the Jade Pendant to save my life. Don't you want to know his whereabouts? Crush it, and you'll find out!"

"Surely a mighty figure like The Supreme Emperor wouldn't be scared, right?" No-Face added.

Xu Lai just smirked. What a crude taunt.

"I know you want me to crush the Jade Pendant," Xu Lai said nonchalantly. "You're trying to grasp at that infinitesimal hope of escape. In that case, I'll grant your wish."

"Supreme Emperor, you mustn't!" The Heavenly Dao's small face paled. "We don't know this jade pendant's origin or function. If you crush it rashly, I'm afraid…"

CRACK!

With a slight squeeze of his right hand, Xu Lai shattered the Jade Pendant.

A glimmer of hope flared in the eyes of the tormented No-Face. She prayed desperately that Jing Ke or someone else would come to save her.

Meanwhile, the Heavenly Dao looked as if he were facing a great enemy, his body breaking out in a cold sweat. He had indeed been hiding things from Xu Lai. For instance, he knew that Jing Ke was not as simple as he appeared. He was an incredibly cunning individual. For a person like that to leave a pawn a Jade Pendant and call it a life-saving trump card…

What if it's a trap? After all, the Immortal Domain had plenty of self-destructing Magic Artifacts.

But the Heavenly Dao was clearly overthinking things. Ten seconds after the Jade Pendant was crushed, nothing had happened. Thirty seconds passed, and there was still no change whatsoever.

After a full minute, Xu Lai cast a sidelong glance at the incredibly timid Heavenly Dao. Does this really scare you into trembling? And you call yourself the Heavenly Dao… what a disgrace.

As if sensing the meaning in Xu Lai's gaze, the Heavenly Dao's little face reddened. Despite having the appearance of a three-year-old, he spoke in a childish tone that completely contradicted it. "Prudence is the mark of a long life. Caution is the key to longevity…"

「Meanwhile.」

Countless light-years from Earth, in a corner of the universe utterly devoid of stars, the darkness was absolute. It was a dead Star Domain, showing no signs of life. The universe, like stars and Star Domains, has a lifespan. Star Domains with no value were usually abandoned by the Immortal Domain. After all, they had no Spiritual Energy, no living beings, no natural treasures, and not even water or food. No one paid any mind to such a godforsaken place; not even the most ascetic cultivators of the Immortal Domain would venture here.

Yet, in the boundless darkness, a colossal coffin was soaring through the void.

The coffin was made of Bronze, its surface covered in countless etchings that seemed to depict a great battle, or perhaps a sacrificial ritual. And pulling the coffin through the darkness were ninety-nine Divine Dragons, each one stretching for hundreds of thousands of meters.

But the Divine Dragons were dead. They were nothing but lifeless skeletons, their spiritual flames having been extinguished by the passage of eons. Yet their bones shone with a brilliant golden light, radiating an incredibly sacred aura.

If any Cultivator from the Immortal Domain were present, they would be chilled to the bone, likely fainting from sheer terror. Only when a life form ascended to the Quasi-Emperor Realm did its flesh and bone take on such an appearance.

These ninety-nine bone dragons… in life, all of them had been Divine Beasts of the Quasi-Emperor Realm!

From the bloodstains on the platinum chains locked onto their bodies, it was easy to surmise that these Divine Dragons had been pulling the Bronze Coffin since they were alive. From life to death, they had pulled it. They had never stopped, advancing silently and without pause.

Who was interred in the coffin? And where were they headed?

No one knew, and no one could answer.

But just then, the mysterious and eerie coffin suddenly came to a halt. All ninety-nine Divine Dragon skeletons raised their heads in unison, gazing toward the distant East.

There lay the Eastern Immortal Domain. It was also the direction of the Milky Way.

CREAK…

In the eerily silent, dead starfield, a jarring noise resounded. The coffin lid was being pushed open!

A pale hand with slender, womanly fingers stretched out from within. The hand reached forward and vanished into the void. Then, the coffin slowly closed again.

「Earth.」

Two full minutes had passed since Xu Lai crushed the Jade Pendant, yet nothing had changed. He was somewhat disappointed. It seemed No-Face had been deceived. The life-saving trump card Jing Ke had left her was a fake.

A pawn, in the end, is still just a pawn.

After handing No-Face over to the Heavenly Dao, Xu Lai returned to the courtyard. He planned to carry Ruan Tang back to bed for a peaceful night's sleep.

Then, a pristine white hand silently appeared behind him.

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