As soon as he finished speaking, he turned and left without hesitation, leaving Xue Bingxuan alone by the door.
She had gone to great lengths to secure a meeting with the Dao Alliance's leader, so Xue Bingxuan naturally had little reason to hesitate.
She raised a hand and knocked on the palace doors, then pushed them open and walked straight inside.
The moment she entered the palace, she felt as if Time-Space had slipped out of alignment.
The sight before her left her utterly astonished.
From the outside, the palace had seemed utterly ordinary, not even as impressive as the Cloud Prefecture Demon Suppression Department's offices.
Yet the moment she stepped inside, it was as if she had entered another place entirely.
Pavilions and terraces stood amid glimmering waterside halls, while vast, misty clouds drifted among them, making the scene resemble a heavenly palace.
At the center of the palace lay a pool that exuded a chill, with a green lotus in full bloom upon its surface.
A woman sat atop the lotus, dressed in transparent thin silk. Her long, dark hair fell to her hips, and her beautiful face defied description.
In that brief moment, Xue Bingxuan saw in the woman's face both the playful charm of a young girl and the unique allure of a mature woman, along with the bewitching air of a courtesan.
After being briefly captivated by the woman's face, Xue Bingxuan quickly came to her senses and instinctively glanced around.
From the bottom of her heart, she couldn't reconcile the woman before her with the leader of the Dao Alliance, hailed as the foremost figure of the righteous path.
Even the voice that had just drifted down from the Mountain's summit seemed utterly impossible to connect to her.
But the moment she looked around,