Where that Heaven's Chosen had vanished, only a bizarre hollow remained, its edges smooth, its shape a perfect sphere roughly ten feet in diameter.
It was as though someone had brutally gouged a piece out of the painted scroll of heaven and earth.
High above, even the wind seemed to have stopped flowing, and the hollow swallowed some of the sound.
An unnerving silence descended upon heaven and earth.
The Imperial Sovereign sat upon his throne, still holding the posture he had assumed a moment earlier when he tried to intervene.
The golden dragon qi and tremendous power surging around him, vast as an ocean and sufficient to suppress an entire domain, had yet to subside completely.
They still flickered and churned around him like tangible flames, scorching the void until it warped slightly and giving off a suffocating pressure.
Yet, for the first time, unprecedented gravity appeared clearly on that face concealed behind his crown, a face that had always been as still as an ancient well.
Along with a trace of... deeply stirred astonishment.
Deathly silence filled the venue.
Everyone who witnessed the scene felt a chill shoot from the soles of their feet straight to their Crown of the Head.
What kind of power was that?
Even the Imperial Sovereign, a Spirit Transformation Stage cultivator, could not impede it in the slightest?
"Spirit Transformation..."
Seated upon his throne, the Imperial Sovereign gazed at the hollow with eyes as deep as a sea of stars and murmured to himself.
His voice was not loud, and even carried a barely perceptible note of contemplation.
But to the keen-eared Heaven's Chosen below, whose nerves were stretched to the limit, it was no different from thunder exploding in the highest heavens.
It left their blood and qi churning, their seas of