That sigh was distant and vast, as though it had pierced through ages beyond counting, bearing an indescribable weight and helplessness.
It echoed through the empty, deathly silent hall of Zixiao Palace, every syllable like an invisible sledgehammer smashing into Jieyin's heart.
He shuddered violently, his entire body freezing in place.
An indescribable, bone-deep chill surged madly from the deepest recesses of his heart and swept through his whole body in an instant.
It was a foreboding colder than the currents of chaos, more deathly still than the endless void.
An ill omen!
An unspeakable, profound sense of impending disaster rose in his heart as well, seemingly impossible to suppress.
Jieyin's prostrate body trembled slightly, and he slowly raised his head.
His eyes, streaming with bloody tears, stared fixedly at Dao Ancestor Hongjun upon his lofty seat, filled with one last, humble plea.
Hongjun's face retained its eternal indifference, and he pondered for another moment.
To Jieyin, that brief silence stretched as long as epoch after epoch.
Every breath was torment.
At last, Hongjun's voice drifted forth, devoid of the slightest emotion.
"When the Heavenly Dao Void stirred earlier, Fellow Daoist Chaos and I sensed it as well, and... witnessed it with our own eyes."
"Zhunti's Dao Fruit has indeed shattered."
Hongjun spoke calmly, as calmly as though he were stating some trivial matter that had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
Yet a trace of hesitation showed as he spoke.
Needless to say, everything that had happened today remained an unparalleled shock even to Hongjun.
And every word he uttered seemed to become the sharpest blade of the Heavenly Dao, stabbing into Jieyin's heart, cut after cut.
Jieyin's heart sank further and further, until it plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Yet one final wisp of fantasy still lingered within