The instant the imposing doors of the Celestial Phoenix Hall closed behind Xiao Lan and her shadow, the tense, awe-filled silence did not dissipate. It shattered.
Sect Master Ouyang Zhen didn't laugh; he roared. It was a laugh born not of joy, but of pure power, a Qi eruption so violent that the colossal, dragon-shaped pillars supporting the ancient vault vibrated in unison, and a fine layer of dust rained down from the ceiling in a golden shower.
"AHAHAHAHAHA!" The sound was that of a mountain awakening from a centuries-long slumber. "Splendid! Absolutely splendid!"
Grand Elder Fei, a man whose portliness and ruddy face usually denoted a lazy calm, leaped to his feet with an agility that belied his age and figure. His face, as red as a ripe spiritual date, contorted into a grimace of crazed ecstasy. He punched the air, his own Golden Core Qi escaping in uncontrolled bursts.
"A Phoenix! A Celestial Phoenix has descended upon our humble mountain to nest!" his voice, normally deep and rumbling, cracked into a high-pitched, almost hysterical shriek. "The ancestors have heard our prayers!"
Beside him, Grand Elder Hong, the sect's strategist, a man whose mind was always three steps ahead of reality, stroked his chin with trembling fingers, a nervous tic that betrayed the storm of calculations and ambitions raging in his brain. His eyes, usually narrowed in a perpetual expression of analysis, were now wide open, bloodshot with a predatory euphoria. He didn't see a young disciple; he saw a nascent empire, a map of the world redrawn with fire and blood.
"Five hundred years..." he hissed, each word a step on the ladder of his ambition. "It has been five hundred years since the Southern Sects saw a genius of this caliber born! Five hundred years of humiliation, of being considered the poor relations of the Alliance! The Misty Sword Palace with their arrogant swordsmen! The Hissing Wind Sect with their treacherous techniques! Soon! Soon they will be nothing more than dust beneath our sandals!"
Xiao Lan's story was perfect, an epic forged in the fire of desperation. A Thousand-Year Ice Lotus consumed in a life-or-death battle to catalyze a miraculous breakthrough? Glorious! Heroic! It justified the absence of the treasure and magnified the young woman's achievement. The aura of a mid-stage Golden Core, so pure, so incredibly consolidated... it wasn't the unstable advancement of someone who had taken a shortcut. It was a celestial pillar, a foundation so solid they could build an empire upon it that would last ten thousand years. The euphoria was a sweet poison, and the leaders of the Scarlet Cloud Sect drank it down in gulps, intoxicating themselves with visions of a glorious future.
It was Elder Hong, ever the pragmatist, who cut through the delirium with a dose of cold, calculated reality. His voice, though trembling with contained emotion, was like steel.
"Sect Master, Elders... a genius of this caliber is a treasure, yes, but she is also a celestial furnace that devours resources at an unimaginable rate. Her cultivation cannot, must not, stagnate for a single day. She needs an endless torrent of spiritual energy, the best pills, the most profound techniques. She needs fuel for her fire to reach the Nine Heavens!"
The conversation instantly turned from what to how. The euphoria morphed into a cold, sharp-edged greed. Ouyang Zhen descended from his throne and approached a giant jade table that occupied the center of the raised platform. Engraved on its surface was a detailed map of the region, a tapestry of mountains, rivers, and territories marked with the symbols of the various sects.
His finger, thick and powerful, landed on an area to the east, a mountainous territory stained a violent red on the map. A land that bled power.
"The Crimson Ore Vein," the Sect Master growled, his voice now stripped of all laughter, the rumble of grinding rocks. "Our land. A vein that produces mid-grade Fire Crystals, essential for any cultivator of our lineage! And yet, for fifty years, the Hissing Wind Sect has humiliated us, treating us like dogs and throwing us the scraps from our own mine."
The rage in his voice was an old wound, a humiliation that had festered for decades. "And why? Because their Sect Master and two of their elders are in the late stage of the Golden Core, while we... we had only myself as the main force to maintain the balance! That balance is over! Their era of tyranny has ended!"
The plan was drawn with predatory speed, with the efficiency of wolves dividing a kill. They were not going to negotiate. They were not going to ask. They were going to take. The Crimson Ore Vein was just the beginning. There were three other low-level mines, further south, controlled by minor sects that had always paid a "protection tribute" to the arrogant Misty Sword Palace.
"It's time they changed sponsors," hissed Elder Hong, a crooked smile playing on his lips. "An offer that, I'm sure, they will not be able to refuse."
With the decision made, Ouyang Zhen drew himself up to his full height. His aura, that of an expert at the peak of the Golden Core Realm, flooded the hall, no longer restrained by prudence, but unleashed with a majestic arrogance that demanded submission. It was the roar of a lion who knew he was the new king of the jungle.
"Prepare the Jade Proclamation Talismans!" he commanded, his voice echoing in every corner of the vast hall. "The Golden Phoenix grade! I want our message to burn across the heavens! Send messengers to every sect within a ten-thousand-li radius! Let no one, not even the humblest of cultivator families, be ignorant of what has transpired today!"
He approached the edge of the platform, looking out at the horizon like an emperor surveying his new domain, and began to dictate the message. Each word was a threat veiled in silk, an iron claw in a velvet glove.
"Let the heavens bear witness and the Dao give its blessing. The Scarlet Cloud Sect, favored by celestial fortune, celebrates the ascension of the now Elder Xiao Lan to the mid-stage Golden Core Realm. To commemorate this auspicious event, which will undoubtedly bring a new era of peace and stability to the region, Sect Master Ouyang Zhen invites our esteemed neighbors to a summit in the next lunar cycle. The purpose: to amicably renegotiate our territorial and resource agreements, thus ensuring mutual prosperity and a harmonious future for all."
The implication was as subtle as a war hammer to the face. We have a divine weapon. Come kneel and offer us your lands, or prepare to be crushed. The elders smiled, their faces illuminated by the light of power. They were the smiles of tyrants, the smiles of wolves who, after years of famine, had finally smelled fresh blood on the wind.
Just as the euphoria reached its zenith, a dry, sour cough cut through the air. Grand Elder Zhao, the skeptic, the man whose veins seemed filled with vinegar instead of blood, cleared his throat. His wrinkled face was a mask of malicious prudence.
"Sect Master, our joy is as vast as the sea. But I'm afraid a fly has fallen into this celestial wine."
All eyes turned to him. His gaze shifted to the great doors through which Lin Feng and Xiao Lan had disappeared.
"That... disciple. Lin Feng," he pronounced the name as if it were filth. "An ant in the first stage of Qi Condensation, with an aura so faint it's barely perceptible. How did he survive not only the Trial of Spirit Beasts, but the fury of a Glacial Ice Hydra? How could Elder Xiao Lan, at her weakest moment, at the critical instant of her breakthrough, allow such trash to be present?"
"And her defense of him... her insistence," Zhao continued, his small eyes gleaming with cunning. "To reject the geniuses of our sect, our own Jian Yue, for a dung collector? There is something anomalous here. An inconsistency. A stain on the perfect jade. Fortune and misfortune often travel hand in hand, Sect Master. We cannot allow a rotten root to contaminate the soil of our Celestial Phoenix."
Ouyang Zhen frowned. Zhao's objection was irritating, a sting in his moment of greatest triumph, but it touched upon an inescapable truth. Prestige, "face," was everything in the world of cultivation. Xiao Lan's insistence on keeping Lin Feng by her side was indeed a strange and troubling aberration. The story she had told was heroic, but was it complete?
However, his leader's pragmatism, sharpened by a century of rule, took over. He could not, would not, risk alienating Xiao Lan now. Her mental stability, her loyalty, her focus... were the absolute priority of the sect. Everything else was secondary.
"Elder Zhao's concerns are prudent," Ouyang Zhen finally conceded, his voice turning as cold and calculating as a blade's edge. "However, the Phoenix has just nested. We must not disturb it with trivial matters that might agitate its spirit."
His gaze hardened, becoming that of an absolute sovereign weighing life and death.
"That boy, Lin Feng, is an insect. An insignificant variable. If he proves to be the slightest nuisance, if he becomes an obstacle, I will personally crush him until not even his soul remembers having existed. For now, he is the Phoenix's pet dog. And sometimes, Master Zhao, a loyal and silent dog who knows no ambition is preferable to a dozen ambitious wolves sharpening their fangs in the shadows."
The decision was made. Lin Feng would stay, but under relentless surveillance, with a death sentence hanging over his head, held by the finest of threads. Elder Zhao nodded, a malicious and satisfied light shining deep in his eyes. He hadn't succeeded in eliminating the insect, but he had achieved something better: he had planted the seed of suspicion in the heart of power. Now he just had to wait for it to germinate and bear its poisonous fruit.
The final scene of that historic day was a dozen Golden Phoenix Jade Talismans shooting from the mountaintop, streaking across the sky like shooting stars carrying an ultimatum.
Ouyang Zhen remained on the balcony of the great hall, his hands clasped behind his back, contemplating his domain. His gaze no longer stopped at the sect's borders, at the valleys and forests he knew. It extended beyond, toward the distant mountain ranges of his neighbors, toward the rich lands that would soon be his. A slow, predatory smile, utterly devoid of compassion, formed on his lips.
The era of the humble and prudent Scarlet Cloud Sect was over.
The era of the tyrant had just begun.