Shrouding the Heavens: The Years When I Was the Female Emperor's Strictest Master

Before the cultivator who had challenged him could even finish a sentence, his voice turned into a pig-slaughtering scream before abruptly cutting off.

The bodies of those men exploded into clouds of blood mist the instant they unleashed their divine power against the Daoist...

Splash!

Rustle... rustle...

The blood mist spread through the air, then was quickly washed away by the torrential rain, staining the nearby puddles red.

Inside the Feathered Immortal Dynasty post station, Hauge and the others, who had been watching as though enjoying a show, were all horrified at that moment.

Even the so-called important figures sitting quietly in the private rooms on the second floor, looking as carefree as drifting clouds and wild cranes, dropped their cups of spiritual tea to the ground with a thud, their bodies going rigid.

The higher one's cultivation, the more one could guess just how terrifying that Daoist was!

Silence.

Utter silence.

A deathly silence.

At this moment, the only sound around the entire post station was the pouring rain.

Gulp...

Suddenly, someone swallowed audibly.

Whoosh...

The Daoist looked toward the sound. The man's courage shattered; he did not dare meet his gaze. With a thump, he dropped to his knees amid the ruins of the tea stall, prostrating himself on the ground and trembling like a cicada in winter.

However, it seemed he still had something left to say to the girl, so he ignored that man for the time being.

With a kind and benevolent expression, he smiled at the girl, who seemed not to have been greatly affected by the bloody scene, and said:

"I have never taken disciples, but meeting you is fate for one of my Daoist path. The path of cultivation lies within this. You may follow it step by step. Go now..."

Taking the booklet, which seemed impervious to water and fire, the girl relied on the knowledge she had picked up over the past few years by occasionally listening outside the village school to barely make out the words on its cover...

"Devouring Source Scripture"?

Under the Daoist's gaze, she clutched the booklet in her tiny hand and hesitated where she stood. Then, the hope in her eyes seemed to grow as she looked at him and nervously pleaded:

"Grandpa, can... can you help me see my brother?"

Her timid, clear voice fell.

Yet the gray-robed Daoist said nothing more. Even the gaze he fixed upon her turned indifferent.

Seeing this, her heart tightened. The sliver of hope she had just raised was ultimately shattered.

Would she truly be unable to see her brother one last time?

She had a feeling that today might be the closest she would ever come to her brother. If she missed today, even his bones might truly cease to exist...

They would never be able to meet again!

But she could see the deeper meaning in the Daoist's eyes. If she did not leave now, perhaps she truly would not be able to leave.

She was not afraid of death, but she feared never seeing her brother again.

She had to live and wait for her brother's return amid the mortal world!

With that thought, she turned and left. Once she made up her mind, she did not drag her feet in the slightest.

"Wait..."

She had only just walked out of the tea stall ruins when the Daoist spoke two words behind her, stopping her.

"What is the origin of the bronze ring in your arms? May this poor Daoist take a look?"

The gray-robed Daoist brushed his hand over the jade bottle, his gaze fixed on her.

"This was something my brother left behind when he departed. It's my only keepsake. Grandpa, can you return it to Nannan after you're done looking at it?"

The little girl with twin horn braids took out the ring but did not immediately hand it over.

"Nannan? What a lovely nickname..."

The gray-robed Daoist froze for a moment before nodding in agreement.

As he spoke, without waiting for the girl to hand over the ring, he made a grabbing motion with his large hand, and the ring fell into his palm.

At the same time, within the bronze fragment of the ring, amid a void of nothingness and chaos.

Ever since Tan Lin first communicated with the young Female Emperor, he had activated the Soul Pearl's [Inverted All-Causes Vision]. Crimson-gray mist concealed every karmic thread, and even his remnant soul was hidden within the crimson mist.

The reassembled primordial spirit, along with the remnant soul's consciousness and every thought, had all been drawn into the core of the Soul Pearl, producing not the slightest abnormal fluctuation.

Yet this gray-robed Daoist still insisted on examining it.

If he found nothing, so be it. But if he discovered anything, then even if the girl had been chosen by him as the subject of his new method, she would still have to die here today!

Splash!

In midsummer, the rain was at its heaviest, and today's downpour was especially fierce.

Within the tea stall ruins, not a speck of dust, blood mist, or rainwater touched the gray-robed Daoist.

No one nearby, including those inside the Feathered Immortal Dynasty post station opposite, dared make a move. All remained silent as cicadas in winter; they did not even dare secretly glance at one another.

The Daoist looked kind and benevolent, and he had spoken to the little girl with twin horn braids in a gentle manner.

But the more someone was like this, the more terrifying they were.

Rustle... rustle...

The Daoist rubbed the bronze ring once or twice in his hand. In the blink of an eye, invisible divine sense inspected the ring inside and out no fewer than a hundred times before he finally stopped and tossed it back to the girl.

Yet from the girl's perspective, he had merely played with it and taken one quick look.

Naturally, she had no idea what Tan Lin, lurking within it, had done and arranged in that brief moment or two to deal with the inspection.

"Goodbye, Grandpa!"

The girl waved to the Daoist. Then, looking back at the post station every few steps, her tiny figure finally vanished into the curtain of rain.

The Daoist merely smiled and said nothing.

If there truly came a day when they met again, then his new method should have succeeded in its trial.

Therefore, he truly hoped she could live until that day, and then...

As his thoughts turned, an almost imperceptible trace of sinister cruelty flashed through the Daoist's eyes.

"What a good child..."

Muttering to himself, the Daoist slowly rose to his feet, then cast an indifferent glance at the group of ants kneeling and trembling amid the ruins.

Bang...

There were no screams and no great commotion. There was only the low, muffled sound of human bodies being crushed and exploded by some invisible force in an instant.

Tap!

With one step, the blood essence scattered across the ground flowed into the jade bottle in his palm.

Then his figure appeared inside the post station out of thin air.

Bang...

The instant he appeared, every Feathered Immortal Dynasty soldier, including Hauge, exploded into mist and entered his jade bottle.

Inside the post station's cellar lay a coffin. The Daoist swept it with his divine sense once and paid it no attention.

The dried corpse within was indeed an Indestructible Golden Body, and even a rather rare first-generation one, born of heaven and earth.

But its bloodline and origin had long since dried up, and even its bones had become brittle.

In his view, the remnant body itself might not even be worth as much as the coffin.

One could imagine that if not for the transaction, this carcass might not even deserve a bamboo mat to wrap it in.

The buyer currently rushing here would most likely end up playing the fool.

Thump!

"Se... Senior, don't... don't kill me... I... my grandfather is the biological nephew of the current emperor of the divine dynasty..."

In the private room on the second floor of the post station, before the Daoist even entered, that so-called important figure from the Feathered Immortal Dynasty in the Central Plains had already knelt on the floor. His entire body shook like a sieve, and not a trace of nobility remained.

He knew that the Feathered Immortal Dynasty of today was no longer what it had been when Emperor Yuhua still lived.

The era when its influence covered the entire Big Dipper, when it commanded the world and none dared disobey, had passed. Thus, he had no confidence at all now.

That man was far too terrifying!

With his strength as an Immortal Third King, he could not see through even the slightest bit of him!

Splash...

In the end, the gray-robed Daoist did not enter the room, because the air was already filled with the stench of urine.

Still, he took the man's life. The blood mist and vital essence all entered his jade bottle.

Even if that trace of "abnormality" had not appeared here, since this involved an attempt at his new method, he had never intended to spare anyone.

The Daoist left behind a slightly altered Devouring Source Scripture in the cellar before departing the post station.

He had already learned where the buyer who had purchased this useless remnant came from.

The trial of his new method naturally needed to cast its net across the entire starry sky.

What if relying on a single seed led to it dying midway?

"A descendant of the old Heavenly Court? Far too disappointing..."

Walking out of the post station, the gray-robed Daoist shook his head while holding the jade bottle, though a trace of reminiscence and mockery seemed to show in his eyes.

Even he had to objectively admit that compared to the Primordial Era, or the current age when Restricted-Area Supremes frequently emerged and created Dark Turmoils, the years at the end of the Mythological Era truly deserved to be called a golden age.

If that person had not planned to invite them to "become immortals" together...

"Big Strong, Fourth... run..."

On the official road leading back to Yaoguang Village amid the rain, the hoarse voice of an old man leaning on a cane rang out.

Yet nothing unexpected happened. All three transformed into blood essence and fell into the jade bottle.

Tap...

After sitting cross-legged in the rain for a long time, the gray-robed Daoist took another step.

This time, he silently appeared near the little girl with twin horn braids.

Crackle...

Inside a narrow, abandoned brick kiln, a small bonfire burned brightly. A battered clay pot holding some water was heating over the flames.

Beside it, the little girl was using rainwater cascading from the eaves to wash the blood and mud from her clothes.

The gray-robed Daoist simply watched her quietly from afar.

At his level, it took him only a moment to read through all of the day's memories in the mind of the girl, who had not yet stepped onto the path of cultivation.

Yes, he was searching her memories from afar!

When it came to memories, the sea of consciousness, primordial spirits upon the Immortal Platform, possession, and such matters, he was practically an expert across the entire human realm of the universe!

Among everyone else, let alone someone who surpassed him, even those who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him in this world were few and far between.

However, such methods that did not alert the original owner could only be used on those without special physiques or those whose cultivation was vastly inferior. Otherwise, success would be impossible.

Very quickly, he examined the girl's memories from the past ten days one by one. Only after finding nothing unusual did he vanish from where he stood.

When he appeared again, he was within the territory of the Human Emperor Hall in the Central Plains, issuing a decree to the Hall Master currently in seclusion, the present-day ruler of the Human Emperor Hall.