For a time, the Ninefold Heavenly Palaces, silent for hundreds or even thousands of years, erupted into an uproar.
One mighty divine sense after another reached out from the heavenly palaces and intertwined above the sea of clouds, conveying shock and bewilderment.
"Has Qingyuan gone mad? He's charging straight into the First Heavenly Palace!"
"He's carrying an aura so well hidden yet so powerful that even my divine sense can't penetrate it!"
"Something enormous has happened. It must have!"
The old monsters who normally remained in secluded cultivation and would never emerge unless their sects faced destruction were all roused.
At the center of the storm, however, Qingyuan Daoist and Wuzhen Daoist noticed none of it.
Or rather, Qingyuan Daoist had no mind to pay it any attention.
Taking Wuzhen Daoist with him, he moved at the very limit of speed, nearly tearing through space before descending directly before the oldest and plainest-looking heavenly palace.
This was the foremost of the Ninefold Heavenly Palaces: the First Heavenly Palace.
There were no jade halls or towers, no swirling immortal mist.
There was only an immense stone hall that seemed to have stood there since heaven and earth were first split apart.
Its surface bore the marks of weathering, as though endless ages had washed over it.
A desolate, ancient aura that seemed to stand above heaven and earth spread from the hall. Even Wuzhen Daoist, a First Tribulation Immortal Stage powerhouse, felt his Primordial Spirit tremble.
This was the First Ancestor's dwelling.
It was also where Shushan's strongest trump card resided.
Qingyuan Daoist stopped a hundred yards from the stone hall's entrance.
He released Wuzhen Daoist and took a deep breath, suppressing his Seventh Tribulation Immortal Stage aura as far as he could. Then he bowed respectfully toward the tightly shut