Throne, the Queen's Contempt!

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Just then, another change arose.

A faint glimmer of green seeped without warning from the cracks in the rock beneath Xiao Yi's feet, then flowed—this was not growth, but the pure color of vitality spilling forth.

Dark green, verdant green, pale yellow, golden brown... The essence of all the plants and trees in the earth seemed to be stripped away and gathered in an instant, condensing into a surging ribbon of living color.

As the colors shifted and flowed, they carried the depth and splendor of an ancient rainforest.

At first, it was only a young vine as thick as a finger.

The next second!

Rumble—

The cracks in the bluestone all around burst open at the same time, and countless vine stems as thick as pythons broke through the blockade.

They intertwined and knotted, like imprisoned dragons yearning for the clouds breaking free of the earth veins, soaring skyward amid shrill friction and spraying shards of stone, piercing straight through to the dome.

A few breaths. Merely a few breaths.

A towering giant vine whose main trunk needed ten people to encircle it, whose canopy was enough to cover half the arena, already stood like a miracle.

The instant the giant vine took shape, Xiao Yi silently lifted the toes she had set against the ground.

Her figure drifted and spun downward.

Her purple hair was lifted by the falling airflow, spreading like a waterfall through the mottled light and shadow.

Her purple high heels had already come to rest, quiet as anything, atop the crown woven from vine leaves at the dome.

Soundless. Dustless.

Overlooking all living beings.

Now, seen up close, four rough bands of color were coiled around that emerald-green main trunk—

Molten-gold bright yellow, sunrise-like crimson, deep-sea dark blue, and ancient-jade deep gold; the four colors roamed and blended beneath the vine's bark, dyeing the entire giant vine with flowing radiance.

A vast, suffocatingly immense breath of plants and trees swept through the whole venue, even making the air seem sweet and fresh—the Ageless Evergreen Ivy.

Its very existence was the embodiment of the mighty power of life, even more primitive and vast than the Sword Willow Vine with its jagged sword-like ridges beside it!

In the Moonlight Private Box, Yun Yingluo weakly pressed her forehead against the cold railing in the front row, her muffled voice squeezing out through her teeth. "A fifth kind of vine... Senior Sister Chen..."

She lifted a finger and pointed at the towering shadow below, then let it drop limply again. "I'm going insane."

Turning her face to the side, she added with unfocused eyes, "I'm tired. Let everything be destroyed."

Chen Yanwu beside her gave no reply.

Her gaze was level.

Yes, level—the canopy of that towering vine had already surpassed the height of the audience stands.

Where her eyes fell was precisely the layered, interwoven crown of the Ageless Evergreen Ivy, like a magnificent canopy.

Mottled light and shadow spilled down through the gaps between the leaves, reflected in her pupils, and in a trance, they sketched out another scene—

Eight years ago, a morning at Shaolin Lake.

Dew clung to the withered lotuses by the lake.

Xiao Yi, whose speech impediment had just been healed, still carried a trace of pallor and weakness from her long illness, like a thin, delicate night-blooming flower.

In the pavilion, she had stood quietly to the side, watching Chen Yanwu play the qin.

For the first time, the faint trembling reflection of the strings had been clearly mirrored in those silent eyes, along with a trace of... cautious yearning.

In the shadows of the high platform, the Ghost King stood upright, his deep voice rolling out. "So that towering vine... was also part of her vine-cluster martial soul."

The jade thumb ring on Yu Yongyuan's finger turned soundlessly. "We can draw a conclusion now. It is indeed a set-type symbiotic vine-cluster martial soul... We simply still do not know how many types of vines there are."

Xiao Yicai looked around. "Does anyone recognize the appearance of this vine?"

The gazes of more than ten Titled Douluo crossed in midair.

No one answered.

Only silence congealed in the air suffused with soul pressure.

A hundred years of Titled Douluo experience had, beneath the shadow of this vine, shattered into dust.

Prince Xue Jiqing leaned forward slightly, the dark-gold patterns on his ornate robes flowing in the shadows. "Your Majesty Ghost King, you are widely knowledgeable..."

A voice from beneath the hood of the black robe cut him off. "I do not know."

The tree crown suspended in midair suddenly folded inward and twisted, like an invisible giant hand kneading a mass of flowing emerald.

The gnarled, thick vines softened soundlessly and stretched outward. Before the crowd could even come back to their senses, they had transformed into a throne patterned with vines, flowing with five colors!

Xiao Yi's figure settled into it naturally.

Her left elbow rested casually on an armrest that seemed cast from molten gilt, her fingertips propping up her chin.

Her right arm lay across the armrest on the other side, where indigo vines coiled.

Her slender feet crossed, her long stockings and high heels appearing and vanishing between interwoven dark-red and green vine leaves.

She sat at ease among the clouds.

Her gaze fell straight down—

High in the sky, Xue Shiming's frantic figure was being chased and pierced by the sinister branches of the Sword Willow Vine, flustered like a trapped sparrow.

On the ground, the vast sea of Sky Azure Vines had already drowned again the brief gap Tang Chen and the others had torn open with their Life-Risking Arts. Emerald waves surged, locking them down step by step.

An ill-timed snort of laughter burst out from the Chang'an spectator area.

Zhu Wuneng bared his teeth, sharp light gleaming from the slits of his eyes. "Dropping her ultimate right in their faces! Sister Xiao Yi's slap in the face... feels damn satisfying!"

Du Gu Fu glanced at him. "The Heaven Dou Three Heroes—the emperor, the tyrant, the saint—none of them can compare to Sister Xiao Yi simply taking a seat!"

Chen Mu stood facing the wind. Hearing this, he cast a sidelong glance over, a faint smile curling his thin lips. "More than just the three of them. One hundred and twenty thousand people here, aren't they all the same?"

Gao Cuilan clasped her hands together, fingers interlaced. "So beautiful."

Zhu Wuneng: "..."

At the edge of the clamor, Chen Xiaojun lowered his eyelids.

The shoulder line that had gone taut when the third Sky Azure Vine appeared now quietly eased.

He had long known this day would come—from the repeated hints of the clan elders that there was "no need to Conceal Weakness," from the increasingly bright light deep within those violet eyes as it pierced through a silence that had lasted far too long.

When had she ever truly cared about showing herself before others?

What she had hesitated over... was nothing more than his words: "Wait a little longer."

And now, with the sky-propping giant vine tearing through the clouds and descending, that restraint had finally... been burned away.

"Doesn't it look like..." Chen Ze asked Liu Ruyan beside him in a low voice, his gaze unable to move away from that vine-patterned throne, "a queen's... disdain?"

Was that not exactly it—sitting suspended in the ninth heaven, looking down on all living beings slaughtering one another like ants?

Her gaze was still as an icy pool, an ancient well; without sorrow or joy, without ripple or wave.

Liu Ruyan's fingertips brushed past the ends of her hair, her soft sigh dissolving into the wind. "In the end... she let go of that little bit of restraint."

Her gaze swept over Chen Xiaojun, whose eyes were closed, then returned to the top of the vine that pierced the heavens. Her low voice was like a prophecy. "A new curtain in the world of soul masters... has been raised by her."

In the shadows of the passageway, Yang Jingxue leaned against the cold stone wall, her gaze crossing the clamorous sea of people to land on the silhouette atop the heaven-reaching vine.

"With her sitting like that..." Her voice caught in her throat for a moment before she continued, "she has an indescribable oppressive presence even stronger than Eldest Sister did back then. More domineering."

Chen Hong stood beside her with his hands hanging at his sides. Hearing this, his eyes stirred slightly, and he said in a deep voice, "Perhaps this is the real her."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the figures struggling like a swarm of ants beneath the vine throne. "Of all the people in this age, apart from us, apart from that girl Xi Xi... has she ever truly placed anyone in her eyes?"

Yang Jingxue froze faintly, memories surging like a tide.

In her memories, those black eyes had been clear, yet empty and still. When they looked at teachers and elders, they were still; when they looked at peers, they were still; when they looked at the countless masses, they were still as well.

That was not deliberate aloofness, but a natural detachment that flowed in her very bones.

Her lips moved, silently shaping four words. "No one... in her eyes."

It was not criticism, but the statement of a purity that made one's heart tremble—like the sky looking down upon dust.