Chapter 47
'Should I launch an attack?
And how long must I stay shackled, waiting for the enemy's lapse as the only chance to turn things around?
Wait just a little longer—if the precision of time could arrange everything, I would build an ending so tragic.
And how long will you stay silent, beast?!!
Command me to strike now!
The problems ahead can be dealt with later.
There's no point in endless chatter if no decision is ever made!
How long must we wait?!
Do something—before this humiliation tramples us once again!!
If you cannot, then I'll finish this myself.'
Whooosshhh!
"We beg forgiveness for our insolence. Truly, there was no hidden intent in us to insult Your Grace."
"M-Master? What… are you doing?"
"Silence! Follow what I do right now, or your fate—and your entire bloodline—will end in misery!"
"Yes, Master! I… I beg forgiveness for every mistake and wrong I have ever committed!"
Fuuuuuuh!
Regret dripped slowly inside Ling Xu, forming a dark pool he could no longer drain away.
He was painfully aware of the error in how he had weighed the situation.
Too much faith, too little calculation.
Behind the face that still appeared calm, his heart beat between two worlds—one demanding the maturity of a leader, and the other screaming the fear of an ordinary man.
That gloom clung to him, seeping into every spiritual fiber, marking that something was wrong—something he should never have allowed to grow into calamity.
And within the depths of his spirit, a voiceless prayer flowed, pleading that the unease swelling in his chest would not become the omen of another ruin.
He could feel it.
A subtle tremor coming from beyond, a faint thud that did not belong to Huan Zheng, but to dozens of cultivators now moving closer.
The world around him thickened under the pressure of energy—like air filled with invisible needles ready to pierce at any time.
Every approaching footstep within the border mist of Xuelan was a signal that the time for thought had run out.
Suspicious gazes began piercing the fog, searching for a gap to understand what truly occurred within this circle of silence.
Ling Xu held his breath, trying to merge his consciousness with the spiritual current around him, hoping to calm the storm before it turned into chaos beyond control.
Yet the harder he tried, the clearer his inner turmoil became.
He saw Huan Zheng still standing tall, yet the man's aura had changed—denser, heavier, like a mountain restraining an eruption beneath a thick veil of mist.
And before them, the foreign noble still stood, unfazed—his eyes calm in a way that only deepened the suffocating air.
The world seemed split between three gravitational cores, each holding a spark that could detonate at any moment.
In that burning silence, Ling Xu knew—one misstep would turn every prayer he had uttered into a memory that ended in vain.
For a fleeting moment, Ling Xu still measured, calculating the distance between his power and the encircling threat closing in from every direction.
If only one level below—or at least equal—he would still have a chance.
He knew how sharp the techniques he had mastered over the years were, and with a bit of luck, he could defeat them all before the mist fully fell apart.
With the power of a Second General Star, he still believed he could fight an even match.
In his mind, a strategy began to take shape.
After securing a swift victory, he would escape with Huan Zheng through the spiritual corridor behind the Xuelan border, disappearing from the noble's sight before reinforcements arrived.
But that confidence lived only for a moment—like the flame of a candle snuffed out by a cold gust.
For what appeared before his eyes quickly erased the remnants of courage.
He saw a formation too precise for mere guards, an aura too concentrated for simple escorts.
The energy radiating from their bodies was not that of low-tier cultivators.
Instead, it was a wave of power that pressed upon him, shaking the very layers of his spirit.
Among the twenty figures now encircling them, nearly half possessed a complete set of twelve crystals—General Stars of levels eleven to twelve, beings capable of crushing the body and soul of someone like him with a single mistake.
And when he probed further with his awareness, he found three more points of light standing farther away—but blazing like suns too close to the earth.
Only then did Ling Xu realize the situation was far from balanced.
They were not mere guards.
They were executioners standing at the brink of divinity.
The three of them bore the title of Supernatural Stars, each with crystal counts of twenty-four, twenty-six, and thirty-two—numbers of such power that even imagination struggled to contain them.
One breath from them could erase a small city from the map; one glance could shatter the spiritual balance he held with every ounce of strength.
And more terrifying still—all that power did not stand by ambition, but bowed to a single name.
The foreign noble who now stared at him with eyes devoid of emotion.
That realization cut deeper than any physical wound.
How fragile his position was—how impossible the resistance he had imagined.
One could only imagine how heavy the air hung at the border, how dense the auras of those cultivators had become as they channeled power through breath, pores, and heartbeat alike.
Every exhale carried oppressive weight in all directions, forming layers of vibrating spiritual mist beneath a frozen sky.
Ling Xu stood at the center of an unseen storm.
His body refused to kneel, though the instinct to do so pulsed like an unshakable reflex.
Within him, his spirit quaked—spiritual joints grinding against a power that defied mortal reason.
His eyes were flat, without anger or fear, yet behind that stillness raged a battle between will and annihilation.
Each time the dark aura touched his skin, he felt the weight of a thousand mountains upon his shoulders—as if the whole world demanded surrender from one who had no choice but to endure.
That aura was not merely strong.
It possessed will—a living presence breathing between layers of air.
It crept through his skin, traced his veins, then gripped his spine with a chill that pierced to the marrow.
Each passing second stretched longer than hours, each heartbeat resounding like the thunder of a distant war drawing ever closer.
To be continued…