Haotian's Failed Ascension

"Very well, Fellow Daoists. Take care," Hongyun said.

Taiqing, Primordial Lord, Nuwa, Jieyin, and Zhunti had just turned around and were about to leave Huoyun Cave.

At that instant, the Five Saints seemed to be frozen by an invisible force, their movements all coming to a halt.

They raised their heads in unison, their gazes piercing through the endless void toward the Heavenly Court beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens.

There, the Heavenly Court's fortune, which had originally gathered into a majestic Nine-Clawed Golden Dragon, began to collapse without warning like a punctured balloon.

The vast aura that had been steadily rising, attempting to break through the final barrier, also came to an abrupt stop. What followed was rapid decline and silence.

The sight was all too familiar.

Not long ago, the skies above Spirit Mountain had looked the same.

Haotian had failed to attain the Dao.

The outcome had not surprised anyone, yet it still made the atmosphere even heavier.

Primordial Lord Tianzun's taut body relaxed, and he let out a cold snort.

"Haotian failed as well."

"It seems he did not receive the Dao Ancestor's true teachings either."

Everyone's hearts turned cold.

Even they, the Direct Disciples, had been kept in the dark and set upon a dead-end path. How could Hongjun possibly have passed the true method on to a gatekeeping boy attendant?

A voice tinged with mockery came from behind them.

"You people became Hongjun's disciples, yet still failed to obtain his true teachings."

"How much less could Haotian, the boy attendant who served tea and water in Purple Sky Palace back then?"

Hongyun's words plunged the Five Saints into silence once more.

That was right.

They had been guests in Purple Sky Palace, the Dao Ancestor's Direct Disciples.

Yet in the end, they were no different from