Silent.
Motionless.
As though they had stood there for countless years.
Rain fell.
Yet silently veered aside as it approached them.
Lightning struck.
Yet dissolved overhead into fine flecks of light.
They did nothing.
They had not even released their auras.
Yet the entire Heaven Marrow Mining Vein had already begun to feel unfamiliar.
As though... this place had belonged to them all along.
Deep within the void.
For the first time, subtle changes appeared in the dozens of Immortal Ancestors.
Because they could not see through them.
Could not discern their cultivation realms.
Could not discern their auras.
Could not even-
Discern their existence.
In the lands of the Nine Provinces, such a thing was impossible.
At last.
An Immortal Ancestor clad in the Ancient Thunder Dao Robe stepped forward.
The lightning of Heaven and Earth gathered once more.
His voice rang like heavenly laws:
"The Heaven Marrow Mining Vein is guarded by the Nine Provinces Dao Lineage."
"Outsiders."
"Withdraw."
His words fell.
The Thunder Sea swelled with a thunderous roar.
Billions of lightning arcs formed a canopy that pressed down.
All of Heaven and Earth regained that majesty which held the ten thousand clans in submission.
It was the absolute confidence born of ruling over countless eras.
They had once suppressed the Wild Clan.
They had once rewritten Heaven and Earth.
They were the very embodiment of the Nine Provinces' present order.
And yet.
The rain still fell.
Harder than before.
As though something deep within the heavens was slowly splitting open.
Chen Xun said nothing.
He did not even look at those Immortal Ancestors.
His gaze.
Rested on the earth.
On the Wild Clan members who were still mining.
Those numb movements.
Those eyes whose light had long since vanished.
Those withered bones scorched ash-white by lightning.