Yao Xiaotian's gaze turned cold.
He had not expected Yao Ming to enter the clan hall through the Old King's Return Path behind the ancestral wall, rather than through the main gate or by breaking out of the Yellow Spring Forbidden Passage.
Only a clan chief truly acknowledged by the Ancestor Scale Platform could open that path.
Yao Ming stood before the ancestral wall, his gaze sweeping across the entire hall.
Some of the once-familiar faces had grown old. Some had been replaced by unfamiliar descendants. Others did not dare raise their heads upon seeing him.
He did not rush to question Yao Xiaotian.
Nor did he immediately recount his suffering.
He merely spoke slowly.
"I'm back."
As those two words fell, it was as though a string stretched taut for countless years suddenly trembled within the hall.
A white-haired elder staggered back half a step, his eyes instantly reddening.
"Clan Chief..."
Yao Xiaotian slammed a palm onto the throne's armrest.
"Insolence!"
The pressure of a Dou Saint came crashing down.
"A Yellow Spring monster dares impersonate my elder brother!"
Everyone in the hall changed expression.
Yao Xiaotian raised his hand, and the blood token lit up.
The nine Nether Python statues within the hall opened their eyes at once. Dark golden flames converged into a massive bloodline formation that bore down directly upon Yao Ming.
Yao Ming had only just escaped captivity. If he relied solely on his own strength, he might not be able to fully withstand it.
Yet just as the blood array descended, a wisp of colorless flame suddenly flew from a crack in the ancestral wall and landed on one of the python-head lamps within the formation.
The flame was tiny.
So tiny that almost no one noticed it.
But that lamp abruptly went out.