After those two words fell, a deathly silence settled over the moat.
The Ascetic knelt on the ground, his gaunt body frozen in place, as though he had failed to understand what those words meant.
From the day he entered the False God Realm, he had walked the path of asceticism without missing a single day in three hundred years. He had renounced fine food, sexual desire, and greed, all to temper the purest ascetic power.
In three hundred years, others could have established a major power, comprehended several great Daos, or advanced their cultivation to the False God Apex.
But he had done nothing except practice asceticism.
All the ascetic power he had accumulated over three hundred years could not even kill a Mythic Walker at the Fire-Stealing Apex.
The conclusion was so absurd it bordered on laughable, enough to drag the dignity of the Ganges Blessing Rule through the mud.
Yet the Great Serpent God's slit pupils watched him coldly from above. There was neither explanation nor comfort in that golden gaze, only an unquestionable verdict.
The Ascetic dared not argue, nor did he have the strength to.
As the silence spread, another Ascetic spoke.
His voice was hoarse and urgent. "Great Serpent God, I am also willing to offer all my ascetic power. Would our combined strength be enough to slay this man?"
The colossal python's phantom slowly turned his slit pupils toward him.
Those two golden, vertical moons swept over the two Ascetics. His mouth parted slightly, and the breath that escaped carried a bone-chilling cold.
"Not enough! I said it wasn't enough!"
Undisguised impatience had crept into his tone.
Both Ascetics fell silent at once, no longer daring to utter another word.
Zhou Yao quietly watched from the side, a clear conclusion already forming in