Di Jun Destroys Spirit Hall Branch with a Raise of His Hand

"By my lord's command, I shall tear them up by the roots."

A voice filled with judgment fell.

Krofu was pinned to his chair, his neck stiff, his pupils contracting violently.

The figure shrouded in a golden halo slowly turned his head. His face was clearly impossible to make out, yet Krofu felt as if a pair of eyes—indifferent to the extreme, looking down on all living beings like ants—had landed on him.

"Who... who are you?! Why have you trespassed into my Spirit Hall..." Krofu shot to his feet, the chair sliding back a short distance. Seven soul rings burst out from beneath his feet on instinct—yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black—as soul power surged wildly.

But his voice was trembling. He knew the person before him was definitely on a level he could not contend with.

The Di Jun did not speak.

He merely lifted his eyelids and glanced at Krofu.

"First Soul Skill: Time Lag."

His voice was very soft, yet it was like an icy chain snapping taut in an instant.

With the Di Jun at the center, the flow of time within a hundred meters suddenly slowed by seventy percent.

The air around Krofu turned viscous as glue. Even the six soul rings he had just lit up hung sluggishly in midair, the speed of their flowing light visibly slowing to the naked eye.

Krofu's pupils shrank.

He wanted to move, but his body felt as if it had been filled with lead. The motion of stretching out his fingers was dragged out severalfold; even a simple raise of his hand became extremely difficult to complete.

He could only watch helplessly as the Di Jun walked toward him step by step, while he himself could not even take half a step back.

"You... just what..."

Even his voice had slowed.

Every word stretched into a long, trembling note, sounding both ridiculous and terrifying.

Fear welled up from deep in his marrow. His heartbeat thudded slowly in his chest, each beat so heavy it seemed about to smash his ribs apart.

The Di Jun walked up to him, lowered his head, and looked at that face twisted by terror, his expression indifferent, as if he were looking at a weed by the roadside.

"Third Soul Skill: Touch of Time Decay."

He extended a finger and lightly tapped Krofu between the brows.

The instant his fingertip touched him, Krofu's face began aging at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His skin went from taut to slack, dense wrinkles spreading across it. His hair faded from black to gray, then from gray to withered white, strands falling away one by one.

His teeth loosened and fell out, his eyeballs turned cloudy and yellow, his back hunched and bent, and his hands shriveled like dead wood.

From a robust man in his early forties, to a decrepit old man in his twilight years, then to rotten, withered bones—the entire process took only three breaths.

Krofu did not even have time to let out a scream before his whole body turned into a handful of gray-white powder, scattering down onto the chair with a soft rustle. Even his seven soul rings, which he had not had time to withdraw, dissipated into the air along with him.

All that remained on the floor was a cardinal's red robe lying limply in a heap, empty inside.

The Di Jun withdrew his finger, expressionless.

He turned and swept his gaze across the entire council hall, from the candlesticks to the window lattice, from the roof beams to the floor.

The golden halo flowed around him, and the power of Ruins of Time slowly began to boil.

"Sixth Soul Skill: Time Annihilation."

The Di Jun raised his hand, spreading his five fingers, and blood-red patterns lit up in his palm.

An invisible torrent of time surged from his palm, spreading in all directions like a rising tide, silently engulfing the entire Soto City Spirit Hall branch temple.

In three seconds, the wall bricks completed a thousand years of weathering, going from solid to porous, from porous to powder, and even the powder returned to nothingness in the next instant.

The roof beams decayed and collapsed, turning into dust invisible to the naked eye in midair.

Carpets, tables and chairs, lamps, documents—everything accelerated toward the end of time at the same moment.

There was no explosion, no shattering. It all simply vanished quietly into the air, as if gently erased by an invisible giant hand.

The entire branch temple, along with everyone inside it, its objects, its documents—everything, all of it—completely disappeared within three seconds.

Only a flat stretch of empty ground remained where it had stood, so clean that not even a blade of grass was left.

As if no building had ever stood there at all.

The night wind blew across the open ground, lifting a few wisps of dust.

The Di Jun stood in the empty night, the golden halo slowly withdrawing into his body.

He took one last look at that open ground, then turned and walked away, his figure melting into the darkness.

The thunder gradually receded, and the dark clouds dispersed, revealing a cold, clear moon behind them.

Early the next morning.

"Ding! It has been detected that Master has not signed in today. Would you like to sign in?"

Li Yuan opened his eyes groggily, his consciousness still drifting somewhere between dream and waking.

He subconsciously wanted to roll over, only to discover that he was tightly wrapped up by an icy yet soft body.

Shui Bing'er was plastered against him like an octopus, one leg draped over his waist, her arms around his neck, her head buried in the hollow of his shoulder, her breathing even and long.

That usually cool face was now flushed faintly with satisfaction, a trace of lazy charm lingering between her brows and eyes. Her whole body gave off an indescribably mature allure.

He had no idea what had gotten into her last night.

Shui Bing'er had been especially clingy, pestering him for most of the night, utterly different from the cool, distant Ice Phoenix she was during the day.

Li Yuan lowered his head and looked at the face in his arms, then smiled and shook his head.

This woman...

"Sign in."

"Ding! Sign-in successful! Congratulations, Master, you have obtained one sexy lace outfit set."

The smile at the corner of Li Yuan's mouth froze.

"What the hell?" His brow twitched. "System, are you serious? Weren't sign-in rewards supposed to be cultivation resources and things that make me stronger? What the hell is sexy lace?"

"Ding! Master, those words are mistaken."

"The path of cultivation emphasizes unity of body and mind. The harmony of yin and yang is also an important part of cultivation."

"Erotic pleasure helps increase intimacy between the host and his partner. When intimacy rises, dual cultivation efficiency rises. When dual cultivation efficiency rises, the ability to suppress the evil fire rises."

"This is the great path of saving the nation by indirect means, of overcoming hardness with softness. What does Master think?"

Li Yuan opened his mouth, but after that whole set of crooked logic and heresy, he was actually left speechless.

He fell silent for two seconds, took a deep breath, silently tossed the set deep into the system space, and decided to pretend nothing had happened.

He lowered his head and leaned close to Shui Bing'er's ear. His warm breath brushed over the curve of it, and his voice carried the low rasp of early morning. "Bing'er, time to get up and drink soy milk and eat breakfast."

Shui Bing'er mumbled an "Mm" in a daze, then burrowed farther into his arms.

An hour later.

Li Yuan strode out of the main building, his robes neat and his spirits refreshed.

Shui Bing'er followed behind him a little more slowly, her cheeks still carrying a faint pink, her lips glistening slightly, while her expression held a trace of grievance as she muttered softly, "My lord, really... feeding me so full first thing in the morning..."

The corner of Li Yuan's mouth twitched, and he pretended not to hear.

In the manor's main hall, everyone had already arrived.

Dugu Yan, Shui Bing'er, Tie Mu, and A Liang stood in the hall. The Di Jun, Long Yuan, and Yue Yao stood separately on the two sides, while Mu Sheng and the other worshippers sat below.

The hall was not large, but with everyone gathered together now, it did have something of the air of a force beginning to take shape.

Li Yuan walked to the main seat and stopped, sweeping his gaze around the room.

"I called all of you here today because there's something I need to say."