Chapter 307 |
Inside the Zhenlong Divine Palace, a pale blue translucent barrier held back a storm of lightning and annihilating black particles, denying them even a single inch of advance.
The flashing arcs threw Leiming's three faces into stark relief—and what they revealed was terror.
"You—! What in the world are you?!"
Chime.
A soft, metallic note rang through the hall. The lightning vanished, and the blue barrier dissolved with it. Both forces settled in the same instant, and the hall returned to its original silence.
Leiming had retreated several steps without realizing it. He had yielded the seat.
The seat was intact.
The onlookers' pupils contracted. Only now did they register that the exchange—enormous as it was—had not so much as scratched the ordinary coral-and-alloy chair beneath Lin Hui. This spoke to a terrifyingly precise command of force from both parties. Not a single trace had leaked; every ounce of opposing power had been met, matched, and neutralized.
Such mastery was appalling.
Lin Hui stepped forward and sat down slowly, reaching out to run his fingers along the smooth dragon-and-phoenix reliefs carved into the armrest. The Ruyi Sword rested casually against his feet—no need to draw it. No reason to stand on guard.
Behind him, Leiming's eyes sharpened. He held his ground and began drawing purplish-black lightning back around his arms.
Then, in the next instant, he shuddered. The lightning dispersed. His divine body rapidly contracted, shrinking back to its original proportions.
"My power—!?" Leiming felt it plainly: the realm he had just broken through was retreating. His divine force was plummeting back to where it had stood before.
It was not only that. The Eye of Life's transformation of his left eye was fading as well—that strange, vital power receding like a withdrawing tide.
He was not alone. Across the hall, Huangque's expression turned stone-cold. Her aura, too, had quietly reverted. The other three had been spared.
"I counseled you. You wouldn't hear it." White Deer lowered his head, a subtle smile at the corners of his lips. "Now here we are."
"This is all a misunderstanding." Shenyin stepped in quickly, her voice soft and measured. "Big Brother Leiming and Huangque only acted as they did because the rumors outside frightened them into it. Even the Mistborn make mistakes—let alone wild gods like us. Given that they acted out of ignorance rather than malice, Dao Master, might you offer them another chance? We are at a juncture where every capable hand counts. If you punish them too harshly, we will be the weaker for it when we truly face Sea Cry."
Shenyin, White Deer, and Diyun looked at Lin Hui with earnest, measured expressions.
Lin Hui read the play at a glance. One had pressed forward; another had come to negotiate. If the gambit succeeded, they would seize the source of the method—the ideal outcome. If it failed, the cost would be little more than a mild reprimand: a risk well within acceptable bounds.
In truth, his original purpose in subduing these gods had always been transitional. They were temporary combat power—something to fill the gap while the Clear Wind Dao's core combatants grew into their potential. What Lin Hui genuinely valued were Yun Xiazi, Su Yaping, and the others. Their martial arts talent was exceptional. Only they could harmonize with the Wild Wind Sword Technique and the Typhoon Sword Technique and push them to greater heights.
Surveying the gods before him now, Lin Hui felt a quiet tide of tedium wash over him.
"I am weighing… your value."
The five gods stared. An ill premonition swelled in each of their chests.
Huangque took a step forward. "Dao Master… what does that mean?"
"You are too weak."
Lin Hui tapped the armrest with idle fingers, his expression perfectly flat.
"Weak and oblivious. Arrogant and ignorant. Perhaps killing you all and converting you into resources would be the more practical arrangement."
His Surrounding Wind and the Ruyi Sword—augmented by the Clear Source Law Body—could strengthen continuously through slaughter. Lin Hui had simply never been a bloodthirsty man, and so he rarely drew on this property. At its root, he suspected it was the disaster energy of the Wind Disaster nudging him to spread Wind Disaster Force further into the world, rewarding carnage as a matter of course.
The five gods fell silent.
Leiming's fists tightened. Lightning crawled across his skin as he forcibly throttled his rising fury. Huangque's beautiful face turned glacial. The flames wreathing her frame climbed higher and hotter, beginning to soften the floor beneath her feet—raw leakage, the mark of a grip slipping on its own power.
Diyun and Shenyin held themselves together better, but both wore grave expressions and quietly shifted half a step back.
Only White Deer remained where he stood, expression unreadable, thoughts his own.
"Lin Hui." Leiming drew a slow, heavy breath. "I will admit my previous assessment of you was too low. But if you believe this is the full extent of what a Mist God can do, you are making a grave error."
He spread his fingers and raised one hand above his head.
"I will give you one final chance."
His six eyes locked onto Lin Hui, cold and murderous.
"Hand over the source of the secret method."
"What is driving you to speak to me like this?" Lin Hui watched him. "Fear?"
"You—!" Leiming could no longer hold it back. All three heads opened their mouths at once. Purplish-black arcs flickered and surged within them. Within a fraction of a second, three terrifyingly dense beams of purplish-black light gathered to a point.
"Divine Kingdom!" he roared.
"Fall back!" The expressions of the other four gods broke. They scrambled in unison toward the outer edge of the divine palace.
Too late.
The three beams erupted from Leiming's mouths. The columns of light twisted together and detonated into a membrane of purplish-black lightning that expanded outward at the speed of light, swallowing everything in its path.
But when that curtain of lightning reached Lin Hui, it stalled—bizarrely, impossibly—and hung frozen in the air.
"You—?!" Leiming's expression collapsed. He had never witnessed anything like it. Not among the Mistborn, not among the Emperor Bloods, had he ever heard of anyone capable of refusing the descent of a Divine Kingdom by sheer force. The only counter to a Divine Kingdom was Mind-Spirit Descent—matching it with one's own domain. Within a Divine Kingdom, despite the enormous drain on divine force, a Mist God reigned absolutely. Every law bound to their divine status was magnified, their divine might amplified by no less than a full realm.
And yet—
Lin Hui remained seated on the throne, utterly unhurried. He had not even risen to his feet. The terror in Leiming's chest finally broke past his last thread of anger. He stumbled back, trembling like a mortal.
"Ah—!" He spun, transformed into a bolt of lightning, and shot toward the exit of the divine palace.
Swish.
In the next instant, his body locked up. The lightning form shattered apart. Back to the hall, frozen mid-stride—and then, with a wet, heavy sound, Leiming's towering three-headed frame was cut clean in two on a diagonal line. The halves slid apart and hit the floor.
"Your speed is below a Mistborn's. Your recovery is below a Mistborn's. Your judgment is worse still." Lin Hui exhaled. "Beyond sheer numbers, you offer nothing of use."
"Wait—!"
Huangque's shriek tore through the hall as lethal premonition seized her. She scrambled desperately for the exit.
Too late.
Swish.
Her body seized in mid-air. A dense lattice of sword scars bloomed across her skin in an instant. Her form came apart in dozens of pieces and scattered across the floor.
She had not even called her Divine Kingdom.
Shenyin and Diyun were drenched in cold sweat. Terror was set into their faces like stone. They were still caught in the posture of fleeing Leiming's Divine Kingdom—and they did not dare move a muscle.
Fast. Incomprehensibly fast. Their divine perception had registered nothing but a smear of light. And then it was over. Lin Hui had not shifted from his seat. Only the Ruyi Sword had blurred for a fraction of a second.
"Your turn?" His gaze moved to White Deer, who had stood perfectly still throughout.
"The Dao Master's strength far surpasses this old man's." White Deer smiled, his voice entirely unhurried. "There is no need."
Lin Hui paused, studying his manner.
"Interesting. You have been observing me."
"I wouldn't presume. This old man is a common Mist God with divine force very nearly spent—how could I dare make a study of the Dao Master's divine body? You flatter me." White Deer smiled and bowed his head.
Lin Hui let it go. Whatever this being truly was, it was not a Mist God. He had sensed that clearly. What it actually was remained an open question.
"From now on, you follow me."
"As you command." White Deer gave a small, submissive nod.
Lin Hui shifted his gaze past him to where Shenyin and Diyun stood rooted to the floor.
Thump.
Both gods dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground without a word.
"We submit."
Unexpectedly, the law seals on both of them had not faded. Their position, evidently, had been entirely different from Leiming's and Huangque's from the start.
"The law seal bestowals I granted you are still holding." Lin Hui's curiosity stirred. These Mist Gods were a contradiction. Some, like Leiming, were genuinely foolish beyond remedy. Others tried to be clever—despite having committed acts tantamount to betraying the sect mere moments ago. And yet the seals remained anchored in them. He had been on the verge of writing off this entire cohort of Mist Gods, and now this. How had they managed it?
Lin Hui had always been a willing student. Speculation was less useful than simply asking.
At his inquiry, Shenyin and Diyun exchanged a brief communication through divine sense before Diyun spoke.
"To answer the Dao Master: we argued against Leiming and Huangque before any of this began, but they would not be moved. In our own hearts, we were strongly averse to any conflict with you. Beyond that—we never intended to leave the Clear Wind Dao. Not even Leiming and Huangque truly intended that, at the core.
"Because… because we believed that since the Clear Wind Dao's methods and law seals had already gathered such overwhelming momentum—why not ride that wave and build the most powerful pantheon of gods possible? An opportunity of this scale comes once in a millennium. To pass it by would be to lose it forever."
Heh.
Now Lin Hui understood.
This group of gods had genuinely meant to remain within the Clear Wind Dao. Their ambition had been to extract the source of the law seals and position themselves as legitimate heads of the immense divine faction that had begun coalescing around him—a force vastly greater in scale than any incarnation of the Zhenlong Divine Palace.
He had dismissed these Mist Gods as fools. It seemed he had slightly underestimated the reach of their ambition.
"Looked at that way," White Deer remarked from the side, his tone placid, "they held the Clear Wind Dao in genuine esteem."
"So it appears." Lin Hui exhaled with something between a sigh and a dry laugh. He clapped his hands once, lightly. "Had I known, I might have given Leiming a little more rope."
"Let us set the past aside." White Deer looked at him. "Dao Master—how do you intend to handle the gods and Divine Descendants outside who are waiting for word?"
"Those who wish to remain may remain. Those who wish to leave are free to go." Lin Hui settled back in the chair. "I am not a bloodthirsty man. Why set traps?"
"The Dao Master is truly magnanimous." White Deer smiled and cupped his fists.
"Even so, the commotion outside is considerable. The deaths of Leiming and Huangque have not gone unfelt. White Deer—in your estimation, how should this be handled?" Lin Hui turned to look at him.
It was a test. If this creature truly possessed the quality to remain at his side, the answer would show it. If the calm was only a surface—if it was performance all the way down—then the moment after he finished speaking would be his last.
