"You traitor, I will kill you!" Empress Wu glared, her tail, bristling with thorns, immediately whipped toward the Venerable. Unfortunately, a shield of green magic already blocked the way before her, rendering her attack utterly useless against the Venerable.

"You still cling to the matter of those powerful bandits from years ago. True! They deserved heavenly punishment, but that doesn't mean everyone in the world is the same. For revenge, you slaughtered every man in the surrounding areas, and you even ordered the killing of your own kin!" The Venerable meticulously listed Empress Wu's transgressions, "Even now you refuse to awaken, choosing to oppose your own clan and the world. Wake up, E Qian..."

"E Qian..." Upon hearing those two words, Empress Wu shuddered. She had once been a girl living deep in the mountains, even chosen as the Holy Maiden to welcome the arrival of the Empress. But then those demons came. They slaughtered everyone in the tribal village; they all deserved death! Yet, there was that one man, loyal and righteous, who had tried to save her!

"Whoosh!" Warm winds swept through the mountain ravine, and green luminescence filled the world once more. The people and plants Empress Wu had turned to stone instantly reverted to their original forms. The Kingly Venerable raised her scepter, pointing it toward Empress Wu. Sorrow touched her heart, yet the green energy on the scepter was gathering: "From this day forth, there will be no Empress Wu in the Bu Xian Clan; this place shall become a free domain."

"Kill her! Kill her!" The men and women behind the Venerable loathed Empress Wu with deep hatred. They raised their weapons and surged toward her—a manifestation of the pain from losing their loved ones, the sorrow of having their freedom stripped away.

"Shhh..." With a piercing sound, a long blade plunged into Empress Wu's body. Thick blood poured from her abdomen. She endured the excruciating pain but could not move; the Venerable's magic had completely restrained her.

"Kill!" With the first blade, the subsequent stabs became even more ferocious. Empress Wu was trapped in place, left to the merciless slaughter of her clansmen's long knives and spears—the same merciless assault she had once used against the men below the mountain, the same she had used against her own people. Blood streamed from the embedded weapons, dripping onto the surroundings. The fury of her clan and the coldness of the Venerable plunged her heart into agonizing confusion: What wrong had she committed? She only wanted to better protect her people from violation by outsiders—no, it was those bandits from years ago...

"Hang her up! String this monster up and let her hang!" The human-faced, snake-bodied form, once the eternal faith of this clan, was now, before their eyes, merely a monster deserving of death. Her ruined body and revolting tail were unacceptable to anyone. "Let her taste what it is like to be hanged!"

The crowd hoisted the heavily wounded Empress Wu and suspended her above the entrance gate of the Jade Blood Palace. The Kingly Venerable nodded. This monster before her was the Empress she had served for so many years; her brutality had led to this tragedy. It was difficult for her to imagine the immense trauma inflicted upon the Empress by those thieves who had invaded the mountains back then.

"Rumble..." At this moment, the entire mountain body of the Jade Blood Palace shook again. The surrounding dense forest and massive stones began to shift erratically, followed by an earthquake-like up-and-down motion. The land outside the cave gate was suddenly thrust into the sky by a powerful mass of vines. Suspended amidst the clouds, Empress Wu’s body hung long in the air, swaying there like a vanquished banner.

It was only then that Huang Le'er’s consciousness separated from the body of the Kingly Venerable. She tilted her head back high, gazing upon the present state of Empress Wu, a wave of sadness washing over her heart. This was a woman's hatred toward a group of men and her love for a lineage, tragically warped by extremism.

...

"Oh? Another star has been lit?" Beside the Big Dipper Seven Stars Stone Tablet, the old man muttered to himself, "The Soul Weapon Talisman requires only one more step before appearing in the mortal realm. I truly wonder which souls have entered the Baleful Void. If the Soul Weapon Talisman falls into the hands of the ambitious, the consequences will be unthinkable."

"Whoosh!" At that moment, a black shadow descended from the sky, dropping onto the stone tablet like a single drop of water. It gradually slid and rolled to the ground, transforming into a human figure as it reached the old man, attempting to strangle him tightly.

Knowing he was trapped, the old man let out a roar, and his entire body shattered and scattered across the ground, even his bones pulverized and strewn everywhere.

"Oh! People from the Bone Sect?" The death god Shun Yi, manifested from the black shadow, watched everything coldly. He moved with extreme speed, immediately locating the direction where the old man's bones had fallen and flowed. He lunged down, trying to cut off any escape.

"Crack, crack, crack..." At this moment, the old man was still nowhere to be seen, but numerous mounds of earth erupted from the ground of the desolate field. These mounds cracked open simultaneously, revealing an endless army of skeletal soldiers crawling out.

Shun Yi was not intimidated by this overwhelming skeleton formation. He summoned his black shadow to dive underground. The shadow expanded from a small black mass to fill every corner of the area. Once it had enveloped all the skeletons, rows of sharp spikes shot out from the black shadow, shattering every skeleton into dust. "So it is a Bone Manipulation lineage's Bone Gatherer. I didn't expect that a small Soul Weapon Talisman would attract so many interested parties."

"Indeed, even the long-vanished Death God has emerged!" The old man's voice arrived first, and a massive, sharp bone claw also emerged from the ground. It shot toward Shun Yi in the air, intending to seize him. Unexpectedly, Shun Yi had already recovered his speed; the speed-soul of the Leopard King Huma was unmatched by few in the world. The old man sighed, "It seems your Soul Energy cultivation is quite good!"

"Seeking death!" Shun Yi hadn't anticipated that a descendant of the Bone Sect would possess such immense power. The skeletons he had just destroyed slowly reformed and underwent a series of reorganizations, instantly erecting a gigantic skeletal frame opposite him. He tried to destroy it with speed and claws, but his abilities could no longer shatter the bones. He realized this was no ordinary summoning technique; the bone age of these skeletons must date back to antiquity—a magical artifact imbued with the passage of time. "You are not an ordinary Bone Sect cultivator. Possessing such precious bones, are you the Bone Sect King of this generation, Jiaye!"

"Heh heh heh," the old man chuckled, emerging from a pile of shattered white bones. The clattering sound of bone articulation was almost unbearable even for Shun Yi. "If King Zhou desires the Soul Weapon Talisman, he should come take it himself. I cannot guarantee what you will gain here."

Shun Yi clearly assessed the situation. The cultivation of the old man before him was unfathomably deep, far beyond what an obscure dark-aligned Death God like himself could contend with. This level of power might make even King Zhou hesitate. Seizing the moment before the old man engaged him in true combat, Shun Yi darted back into the shadows, completely fleeing the Seven Star Dragon-Trapping Baleful Ground.