The clearing before the Thatched Cottage fell silent again.
The faint light in the Glazed Immortal King's eyes slowly died. His lips moved slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.
The Chaos Immortal King's fingers stopped tapping and rested motionless on his knee, like a frozen pendulum.
The Dark Yellow Immortal King's slightly straightened posture relaxed. His burly frame settled back onto the stone stool with a dull thud.
The Jade Pool Immortal King lowered her eyes. The faint smile at her lips vanished, replaced by a disappointment almost too slight to see.
Fang Chen was silent for a long time.
His fingers tightened slightly around the black Stone Tablet. Its rough edges pressed into his palm, cool and solid.
Then he raised his head and looked at the Ghost Immortal Emperor. "What if they severed their own cultivation?"
His voice was soft, as though he were testing a boundary he did not want to touch.
The Ghost Immortal Emperor looked at him. A faint disturbance flickered through his clouded old eyes, like a dark current stirred at the bottom of a deep pool. After a moment's silence, he slowly nodded.
"Severing their own cultivation would work!"
He paused, his voice growing lower. "If by that you mean a True Immortal deliberately severing the foundation of their Dao Foundation and falling from the True Immortal Realm back to the Great Emperor Realm, then it would be like a thousand-pound person carving away all their flesh until only a hundred pounds of bone remained. They could cross the single-plank bridge safely!"
"But the price would be enormous!"
The Ghost Immortal Emperor spoke with the gravity of someone who had seen much of the world. "Severing one's cultivation isn't as simple as suppressing one's aura. It means truly cutting away the