The cold, hard reality of his losses washed over Lei Tianming, but it did not drown him.
For a mind like his, a mind forged in absolute power and steeped in tyrannical self-belief, confusion was a temporary state,
a fog to be burned away by the sheer, indomitable force of his own cultivation.
He processed the new, impossible data. This "Eternal Sect" was not a normal entity. It was an anomaly, a rogue variable operating outside the established laws of the cultivation world.
They possessed a wealth so obscene it could be weaponized. But to Lei Tianming, that was all it was: wealth. Not true power.
True power was not something you could buy or throw away. It was something you cultivated, something you bled for, something that became a fundamental part of your existence.
It was what he, a peak Body Integration master, possessed.
His logic, twisted by centuries of absolute authority, found a new, resolute path. This girl was not a warrior.
She was a mobile treasury. The talismans were her strength, not her own cultivation. Her sect was not powerful; it was merely rich. And in the world of true cultivation, all wealth, all resources, ultimately flowed to the strongest.
He was the strongest. Therefore, her sect, her treasures, and she herself, by right of power, belonged to him.
The rage in his core did not vanish; it was transmuted into a cold, predatory ambition. Annihilating them would be a waste of unimaginable resources.
Subjugating them, absorbing them, was the truly profitable, the truly dominant path.
The tribulation lightning coiling around him subsided slightly.
His expression, which had been a mask of pure shock, settled into one of magnanimous, divine authority.
He looked down at Huo Ling'er, not as an enemy, but as a priceless treasure he was about to add to his collection.
"Girl," he began, his voice booming with the resonant power of a god offering a chance at salvation.
"Your performance has been… illuminating. Your sect possesses a foundation that is surprisingly deep. To destroy it would be a pity."
He spread his arms wide, a gesture of supreme, benevolent power.
"I am a benevolent ruler to those who know their place. So, I will grant you, and your mysterious sect, one chance to reconcile. One chance to ascend to true glory."
His eyes gleamed with a possessive, predatory light. "Come to me. Bring your entire sect and submit to my authority. Swear allegiance to the Thunder Light Sect. In return for this magnanimous gesture, I will spare all of you."
" I will even take you as my personal concubine a position of unimaginable honor. We will take care of your sect, guide it, and absorb its… unique assets."
He gestured dismissively at the Azure Mist Sect below. "And as your first act of loyalty, you will prove your sincerity. Destroy this pathetic Azure Mist Sect yourself. "
"Erase them from this world, and I will welcome you into the grand future of my Thunder Light Sect. This is not an offer. It is your destiny."
For a moment, the world was silent, stunned by the sheer, galaxy-crushing arrogance of the proposal.
The Azure Mist elders stared, their faces a mixture of horror and disbelief. Lan Suyin felt a wave of nausea.
He wasn't just offering to spare them; he was offering to make their savior his personal slave and force her to become a butcher.
It was a level of humiliation more profound than death itself.
Huo Ling'er just stared up at him. She didn't look angry. She didn't look scared.
She looked at him with an expression of utter, profound, and soul-deep disgust, the way one might look at a slug that had just crawled out of a rotting corpse.
She let out a small, sharp sound. "Heh."
It was not a laugh. It was the sound of contempt being given voice.
"I thought the disease of delusion was your son's alone," she said, her voice dripping with a pity so profound it was more insulting than any curse.
"I thought he was a unique, spectacular breed of idiot, born with a cracked skull and a void where his brain should be."
She shook her head slowly, a sad, disappointed look on her face.
"But seeing you now, listening to the garbage spewing from your mouth, I realize I was wrong again. "
"You're not just the source of his delusions. You are the original patient, the progenitor of the plague."
She tilted her head, her eyes scanning his ancient, powerful form.
"I mean, just think about it for a second. Try to use that dusty old relic you call a mind. You are so ancient that the grim reaper has likely already prepared a grand, ostentatious grave for you somewhere, complete with a celebratory parade for when you finally drop dead. "
"And you, in all your decrepit glory, still want to take a sixteen-year-old girl as a concubine? Have you gone completely senile?
Are you not afraid that the sheer shame of it will cause your ancestors' graves to explode in protest?"
Her voice grew sharper, colder. "And you even want to take my sect as your own?"
Another scoff, this one laced with genuine, dangerous amusement. "Heh. You should thank whatever gods you pray to that my Sect Master isn't here to hear that. He values a low profile, but his tolerance for insects who think they are dragons is notoriously low. "
"He wouldn't kill you. That would be too merciful. He would humiliate you so thoroughly that you would beg for the sweet release of death, and even then, your soul would probably die of utter shame."
She took a step forward, her chin lifted in absolute defiance, her eyes burning with a fiery spirit that would not be cowed by gods or patriarchs.
"So stop barking like a pathetic, old, rabid dog," she spat, her voice ringing with finality.
"Stop wasting my time with your disgusting fantasies. Do what you came here to do."
The world exploded.
Not in a physical sense, but in a social one. The distant onlookers, who had been holding their breath, couldn't contain it.
Choked snorts and muffled giggles erupted from behind mountains and within illusionary clouds. In the Azure Mist Sect, some of the younger disciples,
buoyed by Huo Ling'er's indomitable spirit, failed to stifle their laughter. They quickly covered their mouths, their eyes wide with terror at their own audacity, but the damage was done.
Lei Tianming heard it. He saw it. He, a peak Body Integration master, a being who could shatter planets, had been mocked. Openly.
By ants. And it was all because of this girl. This infuriating, impossibly arrogant, silver-tongued little bitch.
The cold ambition in his heart was consumed once more by a tidal wave of pure, unrestrained hatred.
His face, which had been a mask of magnanimous authority, contorted into a snarl of pure demonic fury.
The black and gold lightning around him roared back to life, lashing out and turning a nearby, uninhabited mountain peak into a cloud of glowing dust.
He couldn't even bring himself to speak. He simply glared at his twenty remaining Void Refinement elders, a silent, murderous command in his eyes.
"ATTACK!" his voice boomed in their souls.
This time, there was no hesitation. The twenty elders, their own faces burning with shame and fury, attacked as one.
They unleashed their domains, their most powerful techniques, their life-bound artifacts, focusing all their power into a concentrated storm of annihilation aimed directly at Huo Ling'er.
This was no longer about subjugation. This was about erasure.
Huo Ling'er's expression turned ice-cold. She knew this was a battle her talismans, and she herself, might not survive.
But she would not go down without a fight. Her hand plunged into her pouch and emerged with not one, but nine Golden Flame Dragon Talismans.
"You want to play with dragons?" she roared, her voice a battle cry. "Then let's play!"
She hurled them into the sky. A blinding, nine-fold sun erupted above the Azure Mist Sect.
Nine colossal, thousand-meter-long Golden Flame Dragons materialized in the heavens, their combined presence so overwhelming that reality itself began to groan.
Each one was a god of fire, a being whose power rivaled a Body Integration master. Their roars shook the heavens, and they surged forward to meet the combined attack of the twenty Void Refinement masters.
It was a sight that should have been the climax of an era.
But before the dragons could even reach their targets, Lei Tianming finally acted.
He lifted his hand, his expression one of utter, bored contempt. "Trinkets," he spat.
He slapped.
It was a simple, open-palmed slap, aimed not at Huo Ling'er, but at the nine celestial gods of fire that threatened his elders.
His hand moved through the air, and as it did, it grew, becoming a monstrous, continent-sized palm shadow that blotted out the sky.
It was imbued with the absolute, undeniable law of his peak Body Integration power.
The nine Golden Flame Dragons, each a being that could have annihilated a lesser sect with a single breath, met the descending palm shadow.
And they shattered.
There was no epic explosion, no glorious struggle. They simply popped like soap bubbles.
Their majestic forms, their divine power, their molten gold bodies it all dissolved into a pathetic shower of golden starlight, extinguished as easily as a man might snuff out a candle flame.
The attack of the twenty Void Refinement elders passed through the dissipating light, continuing on its path.
But the force of Lei Tianming's slap was not finished. It was a conceptual attack.
Its purpose had been to destroy the dragons, but its power was so immense, so absolute, that after its primary task was complete, the residual force, a mere aftershock, continued its trajectory.
It passed through the incoming attacks of his own elders, neutralizing them instantly, and slammed into the lone figure of Huo Ling'er.
The world seemed to turn white.
Huo Ling'er felt as if a universe had just collided with her.
The protective treasures gifted by her Sect Master, artifacts that could withstand a Void Refinement master's full-power assault, shattered into dust without even slowing the impact.
The force slammed into her, bypassing all defense.
"*GACK!*"
A spray of crimson blood, bright and shocking against her white uniform, erupted from her mouth.
Her body was flung backwards like a broken doll, tumbling through the air before crashing violently into the steps of the council hall, shattering the stone.
Silence.
The Azure Mist elders stared in horror. Lan Suyin screamed, her voice raw with terror.
The distant onlookers felt a cold, pitying sorrow. The miracle was over. Reality, in all its brutal, unforgiving cruelty, had reasserted itself.
Huo Ling'er lay in a crumpled heap in the crater she had created.
Her body was wracked with unimaginable pain, her spiritual channels in chaos, her organs threatening to rupture.
But she fought. With a will forged in the fires of the Eternal Sect, she pushed herself up, her arms trembling violently.
She managed to get to one knee, her head bowed, another trickle of blood dripping from her lips onto the shattered stone.
She was grievously injured. She was broken. But she was not unconscious.
She lifted her head, and through a haze of pain, she glared up at Lei Tianming and his elders, her eyes still burning with a cold, unyielding, and utterly indomitable fire.