Within a sacred, solemn ancestral hall of the Spirit Controlling Sect stood two offering tables, one on either side, lined with oil lamps whose flames gently flickered.
There were over a hundred lamps on the right-hand table, but only a dozen or so on the left.
The instant Xiao Yu imprisoned the long-bearded elder's Nascent Soul, the flame of the lamp at the very center of the left-hand table suddenly swayed rapidly from side to side. Then its light weakened, becoming dim and lusterless in the blink of an eye.
A gray-haired elder sitting cross-legged a short distance before the tables abruptly opened his eyes. Staring wide-eyed at the lamp's sudden change, he cried out in disbelief:
"Grand Elder!"
He immediately took out several Sound Transmission Talismans, spoke a few hurried words, and activated them.
The Sound Transmission Talismans turned into streaks of red light that shot outside, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Then, with a flash of yellow light, the elder swiftly flew out.
Before long, streaks of flight light carrying powerful auras appeared throughout the mountain range where the Spirit Controlling Sect's main gate stood. All of them headed toward Dongmen Tu's seclusion chamber.
After the time it took to drink a cup of tea, eight cultivators-five men and three women in differently colored robes-had appeared in the underground space containing the black stone house.
Every one of them radiated powerful spiritual pressure. Without exception, they were at the Nascent Soul Stage or above.
Their expressions were grim as they looked at the black stone house. Its restrictions had already been destroyed, and a sweep of their divine sense revealed everything inside in perfect detail.
A yellow-robed elder, his face dark, kicked each of the two unconscious Core Formation Cultivators lying on the ground.
Groaning in