At the Jiuli Dynasty's Ancestral Temple, with only one day remaining of the seven-day deadline, a grand yet secretive ritual finally came to an end.
The royal clan members, each attending to their own duties, all wore grim expressions. Their heads involuntarily turned in a certain direction as they secretly hoped for a miracle they knew was unlikely to happen.
But clearly, no miracle came.
"Your Majesty, we failed to summon back the Jiuli Diagram. It should have been suppressed by an imperial weapon..."
The Jiuli Emperor's expression did not change.
"What were the results in the other directions?"
"There is no news for now..."
The person reporting lowered his head even further.
No news was itself a kind of news. The return of an imperial weapon could not possibly go unnoticed.
"Performing the royal grand rite to summon the Jiuli Diagram—although an ultimate imperial weapon is suppressing it, stopping the Jiuli Diagram from being summoned back would still require it to fully awaken and suppress it with all its strength."
The Jiuli Emperor opened his eyes.
"In that case, aside from that strange treasure said to possess suppression power comparable to one hand of a Great Emperor, does Tai Xuan Holy Land truly have three imperial weapons now—and can awaken all of them completely at once?"
He had originally thought Lingbao Tianzun's successor was merely lending temporary aid. Why did it now look as though he had joined Tai Xuan Holy Land?
As a successor of a Great Emperor, how could he submit to a rival?
Did the other party not even have the ambition to contend on the Imperial Road?
After a stretch of silence, someone gathered the courage to step forward.
"Your Majesty, the seven-day deadline... is almost here."
Upon hearing this, the imperial nobles felt their