The footsteps drew closer.
The first to enter was not Xiao Ye. It was an old man.
He looked about seventy, short and thin. He wore the white robes of the Amber Star Moth Clan, but their style was more archaic.
His hair was entirely white, loosely pinned up with a bone hairpin. His left hand rested on a cane made not of ice, but of some beast's bone.
The first thing Chen Siyao noticed was that the old man had no antennae.
Nor did he have pointed ears.
His features were identical to those of the Human Clan. His entire face was cleanly defined, with no trace of any Demon Race characteristics.
At such a high level of cultivation, his human transformation had no flaws left.
The old man entered the council hall. Xiao Ye followed him, along with three Clan Elders.
Behind them were several more elderly members of the clan. All kept their heads slightly lowered and their steps light, not daring to make a sound.
The old man's gaze swept over the ice table.
It settled on Chen Hao.
And stopped.
He froze as though something had nailed him to the spot.
With three steps still to go, he could move no farther.
Watching the ancestor's back from behind, Xiao Ye felt his heart rise into his throat.
He had met the ancestor once nine hundred years ago. Back then, the ancestor's presence had weighed on him so heavily that he could barely breathe.
A Nirvana Realm being who had lived for over ten thousand years—who in the clan did not revere and fear him?
But now...
The ancestor stood there, his shoulders trembling faintly.
The beast-bone cane tapped against the floor twice, its sound hollow.
Slowly, one step, then another, the old man reached a