Outside the stone door.
Black Blood Stockade.
Within the great hall, nearly every clan elder was present, yet it was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.
And at the very center of the great hall, a middle aged clan elder with disheveled hair and blood covering his body — Lin An — was being pinned firmly against the cold bluestone floor by several Punishment Hall Gu Masters, fierce as wolves and tigers.
This man was no nobody.
He had originally been the clan elder holding real power over one of Black Blood Stockade's halls, and his cultivation was as high as Rank 3 middle stage.
Over these years, within Black Blood Stockade, he had absolutely counted as a figure of standing and repute.
Yet now, his hands were sealed tight by specially made Gu worms, and he knelt upon the ground, his face pale as paper, his whole body trembling like a sieve.
And at the very top, Patriarch Lin Cang sat expressionless upon the tiger skin chair, those eyes hard and cold as stone looking down upon him from on high.
The great hall was deathly silent for a long while.
"I truly never expected…"
Lin Cang at last slowly opened his mouth.
Not the slightest joy or anger could be heard in his voice, yet it carried a chill that made one's hair stand on end.
"that it would be you."
Over these past days, through the Punishment Hall's covert investigation conducted without regard for cost, they had finally found the common point of intersection among countless missions, transport routes, and guard rotation intelligence.
All of this top secret intelligence had, to a greater or lesser degree, passed through Lin An's hands.
A dam of a thousand miles collapses from an anthill.
At first, he had indeed merely coveted some Primeval Stones.
He had thought, with the luck of a gambler, that what he sold was nothing more than inconsequential news — abandoned peripheral resource points, ordinary patrol routes and the like — that could not possibly affect the overall situation.
And the contact on the White Bone Alliance's side had been exceedingly cautious and cunning.
In the beginning, the other party had only used high prices to purchase fringe scraps of news that would never truly affect the war.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
By the time the war truly began, Lin An's appetite had been stretched wider bit by bit, and the prices the other party offered had grown higher and higher.
By the time he truly sensed something was wrong, he had already sunk in utterly, and could no longer turn back.
Until later.
To fill that bottomless greed, more top secret intelligence too had begun to flow, bit by bit, through his hands to the White Bone Alliance.
Kneeling at the center of the great hall, Lin An had at first still been madly kowtowing and pleading his case.
He said he had merely been greedy for wealth.
He said he had not known at all that Li Mang would launch that deranged decapitation operation.
He said he had never truly meant to get clansmen killed.
However, facing the cold gazes of the colleagues all around him — gazes that wished nothing more than to devour his flesh raw — the more he spoke, the more feeble he became.
By the end, the whole man had already utterly collapsed.
"Patriarch!"
Lin An abruptly raised his head, eyes bloodshot, roaring until his voice tore:
"I too have sold my life for the clan all these years! If I have no merit, I have at least labored hard!"
"I have been stuck at Rank 3 middle stage for a full ten odd years — when has the clan ever truly given me hope?!"
"I only wanted to earn a few more Primeval Stones!"
"I never thought they would die!"
From beginning to end, Lin Cang merely sat there, coldly watching him vent.
Only after the other man had finished roaring, his voice hoarse, gasping down great mouthfuls of air, did Lin Cang slowly rise to his feet.
"You wanted Primeval Stones."
"That is permissible."
"You resented the clan's unfairness."
"That too is permissible."
"Even your struggles for power and profit within the clan, your forming of cliques for private gain — I could turn a blind eye to all of it."
Lin Cang walked down the steps one at a time.
At this point, his voice abruptly turned ice cold.
"But you should not have…"
"traded the lives of clansmen for your Primeval Stones!"
Lin An's expression changed drastically.
Hearing this sentence, he understood utterly that today there was absolutely no path to survival for him.
Lin Cang was dead set on taking his head to consecrate the banner!
The next moment.
A trace of madness, like a cornered beast fighting on, suddenly flashed in this man's eyes.
"Lin Cang!"
"Since you will not grant me a path to live, then let us die together!"
Though both his hands were restrained, in the depths of his aperture, that life preserving Gu worm which he had hidden until now, which had not even been exposed during the Punishment Hall's search, was in this moment exceedingly decisively and abruptly mobilized by him!
Boom!
Rank 3 middle stage Primeval Essence erupted violently!
The several Punishment Hall Gu Masters responsible for escorting him had never imagined that a condemned prisoner already brought under control would still be hiding such a final trump card.
Caught off guard, they cried out and staggered back one after another.
The great hall instantly fell into chaos.
Seizing this brief opening, Lin An slammed aside the guard beside him and, like a dying bull thrashing in its final struggle, charged desperately toward the open doors of the great hall!
However.
He had barely managed to charge out a few zhang.
Lin Cang, seated in the head position, showed not the slightest change in expression, as though he had long anticipated it.
The next instant.
BANG——!!!
An exceedingly muffled, thunderous roar, like a meteor smashing into the ground, exploded within the great hall!
A great iron bone hand suffused with a deep metallic sheen shot forth thunderously, like the giant claw of a god of death tearing through the air!
Rank 4 — the Iron Bone Gu!
Rank 4 Primeval Essence flashed and vanished.
Endless terror instantly surfaced in the eyes of that Rank 3 middle stage clan elder who was fleeing madly for his escape route.
He exerted every ounce of his strength, mobilizing the only defensive Gu worm left within his aperture.
However.
Before an absolute gap in realms, Lin Cang needed only one fist.
Crack, crack!
The defense shattered with a thunderous crash!
Lin An's whole body was smashed flying by this single fist like a torn sack.
With a "boom," he was embedded deep into the bluestone wall beside him!
Before his broken body could even slide down along the stone wall, Lin Cang's figure had already followed like a shadow.
A great hand like an iron clamp seized his throat, lifting him one handed into midair like one might lift a chick.
No matter how madly Lin An struggled and resisted, beneath that iron bone hand of Lin Cang's, he could not shake it in the slightest.
In this moment, the entire great hall was utterly silent.
Lin Cang gazed expressionlessly at the ceaselessly struggling traitor in his hand.
"Did you not complain that what the clan gave you was not enough?"
"Then return your life to the clan along with it."
Crack.
A crisp sound of snapping bone echoed through the deathly silent great hall.
His neck broke.
Lin An's body convulsed violently twice, then went utterly limp, his four limbs hanging feebly in midair.
Lin Cang tossed the corpse to the ground offhandedly, like discarding a bag of garbage.
"Drag it out."
The cold voice echoed throughout the entire great hall.
"Hang the corpse at the stockade gate for three days, as a warning to others."
"All forces under his command are handed over to the Punishment Hall for thorough investigation."
"Any who are implicated shall be shown no mercy whatsoever!"
However.
This cold command had barely fallen.
Just as the whole of Black Blood Stockade was still immersed in the oppression and killing intent brought on by this bloody purge, another piece of news, like a massive boulder falling from the sky, came crashing exceedingly abruptly into this sea that had yet to settle.
In an instant, the entire Black Blood Stockade was in an uproar!
Lin Mu.
Had emerged from seclusion!
And moreover, not at any Rank 2 peak stage.
Nor at any Rank 3 initial stage.
But at— Rank 3 middle stage!
Silent Stone District.
Outside the cultivation chamber.
Rumble…
Accompanied by a stretch of muffled grinding sounds, the heavy stone door slowly opened.
Lin Mu stepped out of the secret chamber.
His robes were somewhat disheveled, and his complexion, from the long seclusion without seeing daylight, appeared somewhat sickly pale.
But the aura of the man as a whole had already undergone an earth shaking change from ten days prior.
Within his aperture.
The water membrane aperture walls flowed with radiance, gentle yet far tougher than the light membrane of the initial stage.
And at the bottom of the aperture, a Primeval Sea mottled with silver light, its shades interlacing deep and shallow, rippled slowly.
That was precisely— Rank 3 middle stage, Flowery Silver Primeval Essence!
And that White Silver Relic Gu, which he had originally kept treasured with such care in the depths of his aperture, had long since utterly vanished.
Rank 3 initial stage.
Rank 3 middle stage.
Success!
Lin Mu slowly spread his hands, feeling that unprecedentedly formidable strength within his body.
Upon that face which had always been still as an ancient well, a trace of genuine smile rarely surfaced.
He had won the gamble.
This mad, realm leaping gamble had at last, on this day, borne the most abundant fruit!
But immediately after, Lin Mu, walking out of the courtyard, did not choose to continue lying dormant and concealing his cultivation as he had before.
Quite the opposite.
He did not even have the slightest intention of masking his Rank 3 middle stage aura.
Just so, bearing that Primeval Essence fluctuation belonging to a Rank 3 Gu Master, he walked openly and unhurriedly out from the remote Silent Stone District.
Very soon.
The several External Affairs Hall clansmen who were first to encounter him on the street had originally meant to offer a courteous greeting.
"Chief Steward Mu, has your seclusion ended? How is your recovery…"
The words were only half spoken.
That clansman's voice cut off abruptly, as though someone had suddenly seized him by the throat.
"Wait!"
"This aura…"
That clansman's eyes went wide, staring fixedly at Lin Mu as though he had seen a ghost.
"R… Rank…"
"Rank 3 middle stage?!"