The atmosphere was stifling.
Even the final match of the Round of Sixteen—the only real battle among them—failed to ease that heaviness.
It was not only the spectators who had lost all interest. The two fighting were also caught in a tangle of emotions.
Anyone capable of becoming a Golden Core cultivator—no, even a Foundation Establishment cultivator—was rarely a fool. Most of them had seen through it: Lou Mulin had not been specially arranged by Hall Master An. He had been bought off, and at this most critical juncture, he had stabbed the Hall Master in the back.
In the eyes of the Enforcement Hall disciples, this was undoubtedly naked betrayal.
Within the Enforcement Hall, there were quite a few who revered An Ruotong as a god—people willing to follow her for life, to brave fire and flood without hesitation.
Under normal circumstances, if anyone dared do such a thing, they would have long since struck him down, dragged out his corpse, and hung it from the flagpole on the street outside the Enforcement Hall's entrance.
But now, things were different.
Hall Master An, who had always handled matters by the rules, never bent the law for personal reasons, and treated everyone with equal fairness, was now giving all manner of preferential care to her own junior brother. How was that any different from those clans within the sect that relied on the shelter of their ancestors?
If she had been like this from the beginning, they might not have reacted so strongly. The problem was that too many among them had joined the Enforcement Hall precisely because they took her as their model, treating the Enforcement Hall's rules as their personal commandments—even as faith.
Under such circumstances, one could imagine just how violently their hearts were shaken at this