The grand wedding feast was a symphony of forced merriment and thinly veiled terror. Cultivators of renowned sects and clans raised cups of priceless spirit wine with trembling hands, their laughter brittle and eyes darting towards the black diamond dais. The spectacle of Su Wan's submission had left a permanent chill in the air, a stark reminder that the Lu Clan's power was not just immense, but intimately, creatively cruel.
The Ancestor observed it all from his throne, a faint, unreadable smile on his boyish features. He had not partaken in the feast, his goblet remaining full. His attention was not on the food or the guests, but on the invisible currents of fate he had stirred. The System's sensors were at full power, a silent hum in his mind, parsing every flicker of emotion in the crowd, every whisper of discontent, every spike of spiritual energy that might signal the bait being taken.
[No significant 'Protagonist Aura' detected. No high-value 'Destiny Heroine' emotional signatures identified.]
The report was disappointing, but not unexpected. The heavens were protecting their chosen well. But the net was still in the water.
As the artificial moon reached its zenith, signaling the end of the public festivities, the Ancestor rose. The music died instantly. Every eye turned to him.
"The celebrations may continue," he announced, his voice effortlessly filling the vast hall. "The formalities are concluded. My concubine and I will retire."
He extended a hand. Su Wan, the Phoenix Queen, stood from her seat beside his throne. Her movements were graceful, regal, yet utterly devoid of will, like a masterfully crafted puppet. She placed her hand in his, her touch cold. The crowd bowed as the couple began their procession out of the main hall, towards the private chambers of the Citadel.
This was the moment. If the enemy was to act, it would be now, in the transition between public spectacle and private consummation.
They had taken only a few steps into a quieter, torch-lit corridor when the air itself seemed to crystallize.
**"HALT!"**
The voice was a whip-crack of aged authority, feminine yet iron-hard, laced with a power that made the very stones of the Citadel vibrate. It was the voice of someone who had commanded respect for centuries.
The space before them shimmered, and an old woman materialized as if stepping from a mirror. She was dressed in the deep blue and silver robes of the Hidden Su Clan, her hair a crown of intricate silver braids, her face a map of stern elegance and simmering fury. In her hand, she held a staff of glowing white jade, topped with a carving of a water phoenix. Her aura bloomed, a vast, pressurized ocean of power—**the late stages of the Nascent Soul realm, half a step into Soul Formation.**
The Su Family Matriarch, Su Moqing, had come herself.
Behind her, the air rippled again as a dozen elite Su guards emerged, their auras sharp and disciplined, all at the Core Formation peak. They formed a protective wedge behind their leader, their eyes fixed on the Ancestor with a mixture of hatred and terror.
"You dare?" the Matriarch's voice trembled with rage, her jade staff pointing at the Ancestor, then at Su Wan. "You parade my clan's daughter—a woman already married into another family—as your concubine? You brand her, humiliate her in front of the world? Where is my elder, Su Bo, who you vanished without a trace? You will provide answers, Lu Tian, or the Hidden Su Clan will rain an ocean's wrath upon your wretched citadel!"
The Ancestor stopped. He didn't release Su Wan's hand. His expression was one of mild annoyance, as if a interesting insect had buzzed too close to his ear.
The few high-ranking guests who had been lingering in the hallway shrank back, their faces pale. This was a confrontation between behemoths.
"Matriarch Su," the Ancestor said, his tone conversational. "You crash a party without an invitation. And you bring such… noisy trinkets." His glowing green eyes flicked to her guards.
"Do not toy with me, boy!" she spat, though the 'boy' was clearly a title of contempt for his form, not his power. "I feel the change in Su Wan's aura. I see the submission in her eyes. What have you done to her? Release her now, and perhaps we will only take back what is ours and leave your citadel standing!"
The Ancestor sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "What is yours? You sold her once for political gain. Now you see her value has increased under my… tender care, and you wish to renegotiate? How mercantile."
He finally released Su Wan's hand. "Wait here," he told her softly. She stood motionless, a statue of beautiful misery.
The Ancestor took a single step forward. That one step was like a mountain shifting. The playful pretense vanished. The air grew heavy, dense, and cold. The torches flickered and their flames were sucked downwards, as if bowing.
"You overestimate your position," the Ancestor's voice lost its treble, becoming the grind of continental plates. "This is not a negotiation. This is an audit."
The Matriarch's eyes widened. She felt it then—the true pressure he had been concealing. It wasn't the early Soul Formation she had prepared for. This was something… peak. Absolute. A yawning abyss of power.
"Attack!" she screamed to her guards, her staff rising to unleash a world-flooding technique.
The twelve Core Formation experts moved as one, their swords forming a net of cutting water-based qi, a technique that could shred a mountain.
The Ancestor didn't even look at them. He simply flicked the fingers of his right hand.
It was a casual, almost dismissive gesture.
But with it, space itself *twisted*.
The twelve guards didn't cry out. They were simply… unmade. Their bodies, their swords, their burgeoning cores, were compressed into twelve tiny, screaming points of light and then pinched out of existence. There was no blood, no sound of impact. One moment they were a elite strike force, the next, there was only empty space and a faint smell of ozone.
The swap of a finger. That was all it took.
The crowd gasped, a sound of pure horror. The Matriarch's incantation died on her lips, her face a mask of utter disbelief and dread. This was impossible!
Before she could react further, the Ancestor's will focused on her. Her vast Nascent Soul power, which had moments ago seemed like an ocean, now felt like a puddle before a tsunami. Her glowing staff dimmed. The air around her solidified, holding her in place more effectively than any chains.
"You see?" the Ancestor said, stepping closer until he was mere inches from her. "You came for an explanation. The explanation is that I am stronger. You came for your daughter. She is my property. You came for your elder. He was an impurity I removed."
He reached out and plucked the white jade staff from her paralyzed grip. He examined it for a second, then with a crisp *snap*, broke it over his knee. The pieces clattered to the floor, their spiritual light extinguished.
The Matriarch Su Moqing, a ruler of a hidden clan, a power in her own right, could only stare, her world view shattered.
"Since you are so concerned with family," the Ancestor continued, his voice dripping with mockery, "you may stay. Consider it a cultural exchange. You can be near your beloved clan daughter. And in return…"
He turned to address his own guards, who had appeared silently from the shadows. "Take her to the Reflection Pavilion. She is now a guest of the Lu Clan. An honored… captive." He looked back at her, his green eyes gleaming. "Send a message to the Hidden Su Clan. The Matriarch is concerned for her daughter's well-being and has chosen to extend her stay indefinitely. To ensure her comfort, and to compensate for the emotional distress caused by your unwarranted aggression, the Lu Clan will be… requisitioning twenty percent of the Su Clan's annual spiritual stone mining output, thirty percent of their spirit herb yields, and unrestricted access to their 'Whispering Tide' cultivation ground. Call it… a dowry."
The audacity was staggering. He was ransoming his own captive back to her clan, for ongoing tribute, for the crime of them objecting to his actions.
The Matriarch found her voice, a strangled whisper. "You… monster…"
"I am a businessman," the Ancestor corrected her smoothly. "And you, Matriarch, are now a liquid asset." He waved a hand. "Take her away."
As the stunned Su Moqing was led away, the Ancestor turned back to Su Wan, who had witnessed the utter ruin of her clan's power and the enslavement of its leader without a change of expression.
He offered his arm again. "Where were we?"
The bait for the heroines had failed. But the hunt had still yielded a prize. The Su Clan's abundance would now fuel his dynasty. And the world had just witnessed the price of defiance. The Eternal Goblin Ancestor did not just win battles; he absorbed his enemies and turned them into revenue streams.