Almost at the same moment, on the other side, a soft thud sounded.
Xin Bairen knelt as well, his posture meticulous, his forehead lightly touching the deck.
"Your subordinate Xin Bairen pays his respects to the Sect Leader."
His voice was steady, but waves surged through his heart.
With his head lowered, he sensed the aura around Qing Chen, even more terrifying than it had been in Qiongzhou.
In a mere ten years, his combat strength had advanced tremendously.
A fleeting glance revealed pressure as unfathomable as an abyss.
Truly a born Devil Master. Xin Bairen turned the title over in his mind.
He remembered many years ago in the Condensed Jade Sect, when he had been only a newly advanced Golden Core cultivator, while the black-robed man before him had merely been Hall Lord Qing, someone whose side one had to choose with care.
Through a twist of fate, in the space of a single thought, he had chosen to stand with Qing Chen.
Then had come the bloody battle of Qiongzhou, the rise of the Demon Lotus Sect, its might shaking Gou Wu...
From an early-stage Golden Core elder of a small sect, he had followed along through battles and schemes, actually reaching the peak of Golden Core today. He was even tempering the power of heaven and earth, wielding authority and commanding battle formations numbering in the tens of thousands.
Yet Wan Hun, the sect's Grand Elder whom he had once needed to look up to, now fell short of his cultivation.
Nothing shows the fickleness of life more clearly than this... Xin Bairen sighed inwardly.
He was glad he had placed the right bet back then, and even gladder that he had always kept to his place, remembering that simplest of principles: "follow the Sect Leader's