In the end, Dao Lord Guichen followed Yang Yu's instructions and announced the new prices.
Once the Myriad Worlds Merchant House spread the news through its channels, the announcement swept across the Vast Cosmos Hongmeng Great World.
[Abyss Commerce Department Notice No. 1: Effective immediately, the exchange price of Eternal Crystals will increase by 30% across the board. The Abyss's share of an Abyss Name Holder's Origin will increase to 70%.]
The moment the news broke, the crowd outside the Star Gate erupted.
Cultivators still waiting in line and Old Freaks working desperately to earn Contribution Points froze where they stood.
"What? The price went up?"
"Thirty percent all at once? Has the Abyss gone mad for money?"
"And they're taking seventy percent of our Origin? We work ourselves to the bone cultivating, and seventy percent goes to the Dominator?"
"Isn't this a monopoly? Isn't this tyranny?"
The outrage spread quickly.
The top powers with legacies stretching back countless Eras reacted most fiercely.
They already found it humiliating to bow to the Abyss. Now the price and the Abyss's share had both risen, and they could no longer contain their anger.
That very day, sixty-three top powers, led by Purple Firmament Palace, the Yellow Springs Demon Sect, and the Myriad Demon Realm, jointly drafted a letter of protest.
The letter pulled no punches.
It accused the Abyss of breaking its word, bleeding everyone dry, and disrupting the cultivation order of the Hongmeng Realm. Every line was an indictment.
Its final demand was equally clear.
Withdraw the new prices and restore the old ones.
Behind every signature lay the imprint of an Eighth Step Return to One Realm powerhouse's Divine Will.
Sixty-three Eighth Step powerhouses had signed together.
Anywhere in the Vast Cosmos Hongmeng Great World, that much power