The pitch-black hand carried an utterly terrifying aura. It unmistakably belonged to an old monster of the immortal platform secret realm!
Wherever its palm and fingers passed, even space creaked beneath the unbearable strain. Its target was perfectly clear: the dazzling Medicine King!
There was no helping it. The appearance of such a rare Medicine King was simply too staggering. With its heaven-defying medicinal power that could borrow another five hundred years from heaven, who could remain unmoved?
For old monsters whose lifespans were nearing their end, its allure was positively lethal! Even with so many great powers present, someone was bound to lose control.
"How dare you!"
"Insolence!"
"An Immortal Platform old monster?!"
At the sight, Luo Qingying, Jiang Wei, Luo Qingluan, and the others widened their eyes until they nearly split, shock and fury mingling within them.
Though they had been on guard, they had never imagined that a terrifying existence in the immortal platform realm would discard all shame and brazenly ambush a seven-year-old child before everyone's eyes!
Luo Qingying and Jiang Wei reacted with extraordinary speed. Their divine power erupted instantly, and the pressure of the dragon transformation realm soared into the sky. Luo Qingying's iron fist and Jiang Wei's fiery-red ribbon of energy slammed toward the pitch-black hand almost simultaneously.
However-
The might of Immortal Platform far surpassed anything a dragon transformation realm cultivator could match.
The withered hand merely trembled slightly. The gray-black Dao patterns winding around it spread like tangible shackles. The two men's attacks, powerful enough to topple mountains and shatter stone, vanished like clay oxen sinking into the sea, instantly dissolved and dismantled by that terrifying aura as the two were immobilized.
Both men felt as though a heavy hammer had struck them. They grunted, their bodies shuddering violently, and were forcibly pinned in place. Even the circulation of their divine power became agonizingly sluggish.
The withered hand, containing enough power to destroy heaven and earth, was about to touch the Medicine King-and might even erase Luo Yue's tiny body along with it!
"Hmph!"
At that same moment, a cold snort sounded-not beside anyone's ear, but directly around Luo Yue, at the very heart of that stretch of space.
The sound was not loud, yet it carried an indescribable majesty and searing heat, like a sleeping volcano suddenly awakening, or a deity high in the nine heavens casting a downward glance.
With that cold snort, space and time around Luo Yue seemed to freeze in an instant.
The withered hand on the verge of success, along with the terrifying Dao patterns coiled around it, abruptly stiffened in midair like a block of ice cast into a furnace!
Its power, sufficient to tear apart the void and decay all things, could no longer stir even a single ripple beneath that invisible restraint.
Immediately afterward-
Whoosh!
A seemingly feeble wisp of golden flame, pure to the utmost, ignited out of nowhere at the withered hand's fingertips. It radiated a supreme aura that could melt heaven and earth and purify all arts.
The instant it appeared, the mysterious Immortal Platform old monster's gray-black Dao patterns, powerful enough to imprison Dragon Transformation experts, met it like lingering snow beneath a blazing sun. Before they could even cry out, they melted and vaporized!
"Aaaaargh!!!"
An inhumanly agonized scream pierced the void from deep within the spatial rift, filled with unimaginable pain and terror.
As though alive, the wisp of golden flame raced up the withered arm. Everything it passed turned silently to drifting ash, like the poorest firewood.
There was no earth-shaking explosion, no brilliant divine power soaring into the heavens.
There was only a faint sizzling sound, followed by the nauseating stench of scorched flesh spreading instantly through the air.
The entire process was as swift as a phantom.
Just a single breath.
The withered Immortal Platform hand, which a moment earlier had wielded overwhelming might and treated the dragon transformation realm as nothing, vanished completely, along with the spatial rift connected to it.
In its place, a small piece of severed limb dropped from midair with a thud, black as charcoal and trailing wisps of blue smoke.
Its shape could just barely be recognized as half a palm and a short length of forearm. A thick layer of char covered its surface, while its interior had already been burned away entirely. Not a trace of life or fluctuation of energy remained.
Deathly silence!
The entire Heaven-Class Stone Garden sank into a silence even more absolute than when the Medicine King had emerged.
Everyone seemed to have an invisible giant hand clamped around their throat. Even their breathing stopped.
The sacred land elders, renowned figures of ancient families, and great sect leaders who had been bidding madly for the Medicine King only a second earlier, their eyes burning with greed, now wore frozen expressions of boundless shock and fear.
Their gazes locked onto the severed limb on the ground, still giving off the smell of scorched flesh, then snapped toward Luo Yue-or, more precisely, toward the seemingly empty space beside her. Their pupils contracted sharply, and their bodies began trembling beyond their control.
"Hiss... a supreme elder-level figure in the immortal platform realm, burned to charcoal in a single strike?!"
"It-it's the Jiang Family! It has to be a Dao Protector of the Jiang Family!"
"Hengyu golden flame! That's the true flame you can only master after cultivating the Jiang Family's Hengyu Scripture to a profound level! It burns away all things and purifies their very essence!"
"Heavens, there really was a mighty expert of the Jiang Family hidden here, protecting this little princess of the Luo Family all along!"
"How terrifying! That was the immortal platform realm, and just like that, gone? Without even being able to resist?"
"This little ancestor of the Luo Family has such a terrifying background? Wait, that's not right. Her surname is Luo, so why does the Jiang Family value her so highly?!"
Cries of astonishment rose one after another, instantly replacing the earlier clamor.
Fairy Yao Li's lovely face was deathly pale, her beautiful eyes filled with lingering fear. She had been very close to Luo Yue just now, and the pressure unleashed by that Immortal Platform old monster had nearly suffocated her.
Looking at the piece of charcoal on the ground, then thinking of the terrifying existence who had appeared without a sound and burned an Immortal Platform expert as easily as paper, she gazed at Luo Yue, her heart still gripped by fear.
If the Dao Protector backing Luo Yue had not intervened, a whole swath of people nearby with weaker cultivation would probably have been erased by that pitch-black hand as collateral damage...
Luo Qingying, Jiang Wei, Luo Qingluan, and the others had only just broken free of their restraints, and shock still lingered on their faces.
Although they knew a Jiang Family Dao Protector was hidden nearby, witnessing an immortal platform realm expert so casually killed and burned away in an instant still delivered an unparalleled shock.
A keen light flashed in Jiang Wei's eyes. He became even more certain that the importance his clan placed on this little niece probably far exceeded his imagination.
Luo Yue still held the Seven-Colored Medicine King, her expression unchanged, as though she had noticed nothing of the heart-stopping scene just now.
She merely lowered her head to look at the piece of "black charcoal" on the ground that reeked of burning, then looked up at her youngest aunt and third uncle. Her large, ice-blue eyes held just the right touch of "confusion" and "innocence."
Then, in her clear, childish voice, Luo Yue leisurely added:
"Auntie, Third Uncle, and this... um, old senior on the ground, I told you the ground was slippery and you had to be careful. Look, he fell so hard
"he got charred."
The little girl's words were like the final pebble tossed into a still lake, echoing clearly through the utterly silent stone garden.
Everyone: "..."