However, the Great Void Ruins had severe restrictions: those who were too old or whose cultivation was too high could not enter. The old man had thought of a solution, which was also why he remained within the black ritual array.
"Begin!"
The old man spoke in an aged voice to the others around him.
The people around him, dressed in sacrificial robes, obeyed and brought out ten young men and women. These youths carried extraordinarily noble auras, bearing the air of royalty. They were all of pure royal blood, and their auras even somewhat resembled the old man's.
That was because these ten youths were blood-related to the old man—his own relatives and descendants.
Yet they were now crying, screaming, struggling, and begging the old man to spare them. The old man needed their lives to perform a forbidden art, one that could temporarily restore his youth, seal away his cultivation, and even conceal his age.
This would deceive the Great Void Token and allow him to enter the Great Void Ruins directly, accomplishing his goal.
Naturally, there was a price. This forbidden art required ten people related to him by blood—his grandsons and granddaughters, sons and daughters, or descendants from even later generations.
Furthermore, using it would greatly damage his body and cause his cultivation to fall. But he was already a man at death's door, so he had no reservations whatsoever.
Faced with the youths' tearful pleas, the old man's eyes remained icy and unchanged. He had always been a cold-blooded man. What did it matter if he sacrificed these relatives to live a little longer? The kingdom still needed his guidance.
Ahhh...
Ten screams rang out. The sacrificial-robed figures had the ten youths kneel around the black ritual array, then drew ten sharp swords and drove