Golden-red light surged through the second-floor hall.
The cultivators below transcendent grade were still wondering why Patriarch Lü Yan had lost his composure so badly, while the transcendent-grade patriarchs all stared in shock. Not only did they understand Lü Yan perfectly, even Ye Yunchi stood up, wanting to join him in an anguished shout.
After all, none of the cultivators present had seen the mask inside the box, but anyone who walked the path of cultivation must have seen a Bird-Headed, Human-Bodied Statue.
It was ordinarily enshrined in the ancestral halls of the Blessing and Sacrifice Faction and the Gu Poison Sect, but many tribes in Western Rong, the Grasslands, and elsewhere also worshipped it. Even the Human Emperor's shrine had a statue.
This person's name was Zhu Man, one of the Ten Ancestral Witches, revered among the common folk as the Fire God presiding over the south. He had once sat at the same table as the Human Emperor, laughing and chatting freely, and was also the Gu Poison Sect's Founder.
The Zhu Man Sacrificial Witch Scripture compiled by the Corpse Ancestor had been named after this very Grandmaster.
Witch Ancestor Zhu Man was a member of the Human Race and could not possibly have had a bird's head. His portraits all depicted a Bird Head and Human Body, and later generations also wore bird-head masks when performing spirit rituals, evidently because Witch Ancestor Zhu Man had worn such a mask himself.
With the mask off, a mortal; with it on, Fire God possession. This was the artifact of every fire cultivator's dreams, an ultimate aspiration Lü Yan dared not hope for even in his sleep.
Yet here and now, a fellow cultivator had opened a box containing this legendary Immortal Artifact right before his eyes. That Lü Yan