Deep among the clouds, aboard the Five-Colored Ship.
A short while later.
"We pay our respects to our lord!"
As Hong Yuan listened to those deferential voices, his gaze swept over the five Divine Ability Practitioners kneeling below him in full obeisance: Zhu Benzi, Chi Liao, Jin Lie, Jing Tan of the Black Flame Cult, and Tie Qiong. Not the slightest ripple stirred in his eyes.
Zhu Benzi and the others' choice had never been in doubt.
Divine Ability Practitioners certainly did not lack the courage to fight to the death, but who wanted to die when they could live?
Hong Yuan remained calm, leaving them on their knees while he toyed with a lustrous Jade Token in his palm.
The Jade Token was only two fingers wide and half a foot long, engraved with intricate, ancient cloud patterns. It was precisely the "Child Seal" held by the Four Lineages.
From antiquity to the present, over hundreds of thousands of years, the Mother of All Things Cult had sent out countless missionaries, scattering them across Nongtu and leaving them to grow unchecked.
Before leaving the mother cult, every missionary received a Child Seal. Even across the Nine Fields and Eight Wastelands, it could resonate from afar with the Mother Seal of All Things within the Great Ruins.
The seal's bearer could also use it to enter a spiritual world known as the Mother River of All Things.
Hong Yuan sensed wisps of the aura of laws from the cloud patterns on the Child Seal, making it clear that its creator had been a Primal Elixir powerhouse.
It was precisely the power of laws that allowed it to establish contact with the Mother Seal of All Things regardless of distance.
Hong Yuan's divine intent dissolved into a tiny glimmer, silently seeping