In the sky, twelve old men calmly observed the land below while sipping tea.

Down below, many people sat cross-legged, their faces heavy and sorrowful.

In the eyes of the old men, there was neither pity nor any sadistic pleasure in those people’s suffering—only indifference.

To enter the Shadowfallen Burial Mountain, the internal formations of the mountain analyzed each cultivator, and each one could only enter once per realm. If they tried to enter a second time while in the same realm, the barrier at the entrance would block them.

Unfortunately for the cultivators below, they had come merely to accompany others—most likely bringing their juniors—but they themselves had already entered the mountain when they were in their current realm.

The problem was that the 12 powers had no way of knowing who had entered before and who hadn’t, so they simply implanted slave seals in everyone. And when the time came, these cultivators in particular were unable to enter, left waiting outside as hostages.

Now, they could only place their hopes on those who were inside the mountain, hoping they would bring back what the enemy wanted—and maybe, just maybe, earn the chance to save themselves.

At that moment, among the twelve figures in the sky, there was a clear order of leadership. One of the elders drank tea in the center, while the other eleven essentially orbited around him.

One of the elders, seated further in the corner, cast a thoughtful glance at the central figure.

“Fellow Daoist Xu… are we certain that the Liu family truly won’t retaliate? Just sending one ordinary expert would be enough to finish us. In fact, they wouldn’t even need experts—some of their common members are already beyond what we can handle…” the old man spoke cautiously to the apparent leader.

But the one who answered was another of the twelve, sounding somewhat impatient. Whether it was nervousness at hearing that terrifying name, or simply annoyance with the elder who asked, it was hard to tell.

“Old Tie, why do you keep harping on this? The powerful families of the Central Plateau have already confirmed that the Liu family suffered a severe blow over ten years ago. They’ve all shrunk back like turtles in their shell, trapped in their own territory. If they dare to come out, they won’t survive a moment. As for those who were outside, they’ve already been mercilessly hunted down.” the old man spoke irritably, as if this wasn’t the first time the topic had come up.

The leader in the center, who had been calmly drinking his tea, finally placed the white cup with golden patterns onto a jade table floating at his side.

The man was old, dressed in red robes trimmed with gold. His white eyebrows had grown so long they trailed past his temples, merging into a single, shaggy line above his eyes, which seemed nearly closed with age.

His face bore the marks of extreme old age, with his long white hair and beard swaying gently in the wind high above.

[llustrative image, I couldn’t join the eyebrows.]

His eyes opened slightly, revealing an indifferent light, and he spoke with an aged yet firm voice.

“I know many of you are afraid, and that’s normal when speaking of a peak family like the Liu. But understand that now, things have changed. Those who cling to the past, like the Mu family, and those who fear to act in the face of change, like those who refused to join us and stayed on the fence, will simply turn to dust. Meanwhile, our powers, who knew how to adapt and chose the right allegiance at the right time, will endure,” he spoke with calm hoarseness.

There was no cruelty, arrogance, or fear in his voice. Only indifference and confidence.

The other eleven calmed upon hearing Old Xu’s voice and nodded in agreement, continuing to listen.

“Of course, there may be risks, but they are very small compared to the gains,” he continued, as his half-closed eyes fell upon the enormous dome of white misty clouds—the complete opposite of the black dome from the beginning.

In the sky, the dome was so vast that its end could not be seen by looking upward, nor its edges by looking outward. Even hundreds of thousands of miles away, it was still clearly visible.

Old Xu kept his gaze distracted, fixated on the dome, unaware of the extra presence there.

“Perhaps the risks are more significant than you realize.”

An aged voice suddenly rose from behind them.

The unexpected appearance startled them, and they all searched for the source, but found no one.

“Who said that?” Old Xu opened his eyes, furrowing his brows and growing alert. But none of the others knew how to answer, nor did they see any stranger among them.

“Wait… where is Old Tie?!”

A voice drew everyone’s attention. It was precisely the man who had argued with Old Tie earlier, but now he was the first to notice the disappearance.

Immediately, everyone rose into the air, tense and wary, their expressions growing dark.

“Gather in the center and stay sharp. Someone is playing tricks!” Old Xu shouted with his hoarse, aged voice.

They quickly regrouped, releasing their energies and probing the surroundings.

Despite their seemingly calm posture, inside they were terrified. Someone had entered unnoticed, taken one of them, and not triggered the slightest alarm. That was terrifying.

They wanted to flee, but feared becoming easy targets if they split apart.

Meanwhile, a little further away, Elder Tie trembled, his eyes wide as he stood frozen before the old man in golden robes.

It was Bao Wuji, who smiled faintly at the terrified elder.

He already held a very poor opinion of those old men who had forced nearly a million people into slavery to serve them. And upon arriving, he even heard them speaking about becoming subordinates of the Liu family’s enemies from the Central Continent. Well… Aotian was ninety percent sure that the Liu family mentioned was Rihai’s, which only sealed the fate of the twelve powers as mortal enemies.

Unfortunately for Old Tie, he was the weakest among the twelve. He had just entered the Soul Formation Realm… well, “just” could mean thousands of years ago, but since then, he had hardly advanced at all.

So Aotian made him the target. After all, he was the easiest, and being an entire major realm above the man, it should be possible to capture him without leaving a trace.

‘Fortunately, even though I can’t erase Bao Wuji’s presence from other Void Refiners, I can still use Golden Core Qi concealment techniques so that he goes unnoticed by cultivators of lower realms, like these twelve in the Soul Formation.’

Aotian thought in relief before turning his focus back to Old Tie before him.

Bao Wuji wasted no time—he placed his hand on the man’s head and tried to forcibly extract his memories.

The old man’s eyes widened in horror, and he struggled desperately, knowing that once his soul was read, he would die anyway. With no way to beg for his life, he fought with everything he had.

Unfortunately for him, Bao Wuji’s powerful energy locked him in place, preventing him from moving or speaking.

This time, however, the Soul Search was not smooth.

Aotian had only ever done this with Golden Core cultivators and below, and this was the first time he attempted it on someone who had already stepped into the soul-cultivating realms. And apparently, their resistance to Soul Search was fierce.

Bao Wuji continued to insert energy brutally, trying to rip the memories out of that soul.

Old Tie was losing the struggle, but many of his memories were destroyed in the process, while Aotian only received fragments.

With no other options, seeing the old man’s mind collapsing much faster than normal due to resistance, Aotian had no choice but to push the invasion even harder.

A few seconds later, Bao Wuji withdrew his hand, and Old Tie’s lifeless body fell to the ground.

In the sect, inside his room, Aotian’s brow furrowed.

At least nine-tenths of the old man’s memory had been lost in the invasion.

‘The invasion time is already limited before the soul’s collapse, due to the intense pressure it undergoes from the brute-force invasion. But when they resist, besides shattering their own memories, the soul’s collapse accelerates even more, preventing me from reading everything before the end. And even what I manage to read comes in fragments. I haven’t been able to get a single complete technique from him, nor any useful information.’

His mouth tightened.

‘And there’s another problem. An old man of this level easily has more than 5,000 years of life, and I need time to process such a massive amount of memory without putting my own personality at risk—one that’s not even 50 years old, let alone 5,000. And time is the one thing there isn’t during a Soul Search… looks like I need to find more effective soul-reading methods.’

Aotian’s eyes were heavy. He wanted information from the old men’s minds to better understand what was happening, which was why he didn’t simply kill them—but now the prospects seemed bleak.

‘Damn it, I want to read their minds, but where would I find so many Soul Search techniques in such a short time to create something useful?!’

He thought bitterly as he looted Old Tie’s body, taking even his clothes, then destroyed the corpse before flying silently back into the sky, where the old fossils still stood together, on alert.

“…the orders of the great powers of the Central Continent.”

Old Xu at the center finished speaking aloud, glancing around for a response.

Aotian’s mouth twitched as he caught only the end of the speech, wordless.

‘Uhh… that old man must have given one hell of a speech full of information and villainous threats while I was away, didn’t he?’

Hidden in the air, Bao Wuji raised a hand to his forehead helplessly.

‘Ugh… I bet he did. He must have thought I was still lurking around nearby. Damn it, if I had known, I would’ve stayed. There must have been way more information than the fragments I ripped from that other old man.’

Sighing helplessly, he lowered his eyes in shame at his miscalculation.

But it was in that motion that Aotian noticed several Nascent Soul cultivators from the twelve powers still below, on the ground, surrounding the other enslaved cultivators so they couldn’t escape.

Upon seeing them, one of Bao Wuji’s eyebrows arched as an idea formed, while the earlier question returned to his mind.

‘… but where would I find so many Soul Search techniques in such a short time…’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep