A tyrant never looks at a rare treasure with awe; he merely calculates how many iron chains are required to drag it into his bedroom before his neighbors realize it exists.The quiet that blanketed the Star Altar was heavy, cold, and suffocating. Up on his high golden throne, Envoy Mu Chen did not take his eyes off Ye Qingxuan as she calmly stepped off the white jade ring, her dark linen cloak brushing against the frost covered stone floor. The cold, distant disdain that had rested on his refined face all morning was completely gone, replaced by a dark, intense flicker of feverish greed that made his blue eyes burn like hot iron.His fingers tightened around the armrests of his carved seat, the gold leaf beneath his knuckles buckling under the sudden, silent spike of his internal force.The Star bloodline, Mu Chen murmured under his breath, a sharp, raspy edge invading his usually melodious voice. My grandfather swore every branch of that tree was chopped down and bur

A stolen crown never fits the head of a traitor, no matter how many generations spend their lives polishing the gold.The mountain wind howled across the shattered white jade platform, whipping my coarse gray tunic against my shins as the pitch-black aura of the Nine-Abyss Seal settled over the ring. Envoy Mu Chen stood frozen ten paces away, his silver spear vibrating so violently that the fine metallic dust on the stone danced in chaotic circles around his polished boots. The sudden, suffocating weight of my true imperial register had pinned the entire grand plaza in a silent, breathless trap, forcing even the high council judges to grip their wooden armrests to keep from slipping to their knees.Mu Chen choked down his panic, his pale face twisting into a mask of pure, hysterical venom as he forced his sixth-stage foundational energy to flare back to life.You think a heavy spiritual pressure is enough to intimidate a high lord of the Central Imperial House, Mu Che

A man who spends his entire life wrapped in royal silk rarely understands that his skin bleeds the exact same dark red as a salt gatherer when the steel finally bites into his bone.The sharp tip of my dull black blade was already embedded deep within his chest, pinned against the cold bronze plate of the primary rune pillar behind him, but the core energy inside his sixth-stage matrix refused to accept its end quietly. Thick, viscous golden blood bubbled up from his throat, spilling over his pale lips and staining his shredded white silk collar as his chest heaved in ragged, violent gasps.High above us, the bright noon sun struck the peak of the Star Altar, casting long, sharp shadows across the ruined white jade floorboards. The tens of thousands of spectators jammed into the towering stone tiers remained frozen in a horrified, breathless standstill, as if a single loud cough might bring the sky crashing down upon their heads.Mu Chen’s remaining left hand clawed weakly at the dark

When a fake god leans out of the sky to crush an ant, he never expects the dirt beneath his boots to swallow his mountain whole.The residual golden sparks from the shattered celestial projection were still falling like hot ash onto the cracked white jade, but the divine pressure hanging in the atmosphere had not vanished. High above the ruined arena, the swirling purple clouds expanded, locking the space above the Star Altar in a suffocating, dense field of concentrated upper-realm force. A second, far more concentrated wave of spiritual pressure rolled down from the sky, hitting the grandstands with the force of an iron wall.Across the four surrounding spectator tiers, thousands of cultivators groaned in agony. High elders, provincial delegates, and elite young champions alike were slammed flat against the stone floorboards. Their internal energy networks buckled under the raw, unyielding weight of the divine gaze, and dark red blood began to ooze from their ears and no

When a gold cage fractures ten miles above the earth, the bird does not weep for the broken bars; it simply spreads its wings while the guards tear each other apart for the scrap wire.The deafening roar of the falling continent hitting the lower ridge echoed through the dense cloud layer, sending massive shockwaves of shattered white jade and burning timber hurtling through the open sky. Thousands of meters up, the surrounding air was a chaotic nightmare of howling spatial gales, falling stone pillars, and screaming cultivators who were tumbling through the void as their flight talismans fizzled out into grey smoke.Inside our pitch-black void sphere, the violent gravitational shear felt like nothing more than a light spring breeze against my oversized gray sleeves.Look at those fools down there, Xiao Lan said, her sharp eyes tracking three high elders from the Great Sun Kingdom who were actively stabbing each other over a single working flight sedan while falling t