Zhou Xuan's utterly emotionless words were like a basin of ice water dumped over Shangguan Lie's heart, which had burned with greed and murderous intent for ten thousand years.
Snatch the only one and make a short-lived killing.
Or do steady business with a guaranteed return.
Those two choices struck Shangguan Lie's mind like a pair of heavy hammers.
He had lived for over ten thousand years. What spectacle had he not witnessed? What human heart had he not schemed against?
Yet today, for the first time, he felt utterly at the mercy of a junior whose cultivation was far below his own.
Kill him, and the stone would be mine.
But then what?
One stone could save my granddaughter once and stabilize me for a while, but could it stabilize the entire Taia Immortal Vein? Could it spare those tens of thousands of disciples the agony of their meridians burning day and night?
No.
Once this stone was used up, it would be gone.
And the Taia Immortal Vein's fatal affliction would remain fatal.
But if I didn't kill him...
The vicious gleam in Shangguan Lie's eyes flickered wildly. He stared fixedly at Zhou Xuan's face, so calm it bordered on indifference, trying to find even the slightest flaw, the faintest hint of a bluff.
There was none.
Nothing at all.
Those eyes held only a calm that had seen through life and death, as though saying, Make your move, and I'll oblige. But the consequences are yours to bear.
The feeling lodged like a fishbone in Shangguan Lie's throat.
He, a mighty cultivator of the Longevity Realm and a Vein Master of the Seventy-Two Immortal Veins, had actually been backed into a corner by a boy at the Spirit Transformation Stage.
The atmosphere in the great hall froze