Chapter 81: Bai Clan
The grand main hall of the Bai family estate was a monument to centuries of martial prestige. Towering pillars of polished jade held up a vaulted ceiling painted with swirling depictions of ancient wind spirits. The air inside the pavilion was filled with the scent of burning high-grade incense designed to calm the mind and nourish the heart.
Yet, despite the luxurious surroundings and the calming aromas, the atmosphere within the hall was overwhelmingly tense, practically suffocating under a thick blanket of political anxiety.
Seated upon the elevated, central throne was the Patriarch of the Bai Clan, Bai Changkong. His face was currently pulled into a severe, troubled frown. To his immediate left and right, seated upon slightly lower chairs were the core elders of the inner circle.
Among them sat Elder Bai Mo, the very same elder who had coldly escorted the crippled Bai Qingyue into the outer-city slums and discarded her at Lin Yuan’s doorstep like a piece of useless refuse.
The council was in the middle of an emergency summit. The balance of power in Azure Cloud City was shifting, and the Bai clan was standing on the terrifying precipice of being left entirely behind in the dust.
"Patriarch," spoke Elder Bai Li, a man with a sharp, hawkish face, breaking the heavy silence. His voice carried a tremor of genuine concern. "Envoy Zhao Wuhen... a direct representative of the Cultivation Council... was known to have formally visited the Wang clan’s annual lecture this period. He sat directly beside Wang Tianze in full view of thousands of disciples."
A collective murmur of unease rippled through the seated elders.
"Is this a deliberate act of favor for the Wang clan by the Cultivation Council?" Elder Bai Li continued, his fists clenching on his lap. "If Wang Tianze have secured the absolute backing of the Council, they will slowly suffocate our businesses and forcefully annex our spiritual veins! We cannot compete with a faction backed by an Envoy!"
The panic was palpable, but before it could fully take root in the minds of the council, another elder, a pragmatic man named Bai Shan, forcefully injected his dissenting opinion.
"Do not let your fear cloud your judgment, Bai Li," Elder Bai Shan scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. "Envoy Zhao Wuhen is notoriously known to act outside the strict orders of the Council. He is a greedy, opportunistic wolf who is always trying to act on his own personal wishes, arrogantly flaunting his status as an Envoy to extort the local powers of the region."
Bai Shan leaned forward, a cynical sneer twisting his lips. "Surely, the Wang clan, with their wealth, might have simply paid him a hefty bribe to buy his time. They invited him to their lecture for a few hours just to show us and the Xu clan that they are getting close to the Cultivation Council. It is an empty show of force. A purchased illusion of prestige to intimidate us into conceding."
The explanation made logical sense, and a few of the elders visibly relaxed, nodding in agreement. The Wang clan’s wealth was vast, and buying a few hours of an Envoy’s time was entirely within their arrogant modus operandi.
But the brief moment of relief was instantly shattered by the grave, raspy voice of Elder Bai Mo.
"The Wang clan’s purchased prestige might be an illusion," Elder Bai Mo stated, his eyes dark and serious as he looked down the row of elders. "But the movements of the Xu clan are absolutely not. My own network has verified a terrifying development. The Saintess of the Pure Cloud Sect visited the Xu clan estate recently. She is currently residing in their inner pavilions as an honored guest."
The moment the words Pure Cloud Sect left Bai Mo’s mouth, the temperature in the hall seemed to violently plummet.
Elder Bai Li, who had just been calmed down, was so completely shocked that he violently slammed his hands on his armrests. He shot up from his seat, knocking his teacup onto the floor where it shattered into a dozen pieces.
"The Pure Cloud Sect?!" Elder Bai Li exclaimed, his voice cracking with panic, completely forgetting his manners. "The very sect that is highly favored by the Lord of the Zhao Province?! Are you absolutely certain of this?!"
"Compose yourself, Elder Bai Li!" Patriarch Bai Changkong barked, his Core Formation aura violently flaring and pressing the panicked elder back down into his seat. The Patriarch’s face was grim. He turned his heavy gaze toward the right side of the hall. "Bai Mo, do not speak of rumors in this hall. Confirm if this is true."
Elder Bai Mo bowed his head slightly, his expression entirely devoid of doubt. "I would not dare speak falsehoods to the Patriarch. I confirm it. It is indeed Su Yin, the peerless prodigy of the Pure Cloud Sect. She visited the Xu clan recently, accompanied by a retinue of elite Dao protectors. The Xu clan is actively forging ties with the upper echelons of the province."
Patriarch Bai Changkong leaned back heavily against his throne, his eyes closing as an exhausting worry settled over his features.
The geopolitical reality was devastating. The other two major clans of Azure Cloud City were aggressively making monumental moves to gain favor from the higher powers. The Wang clan was tossing mountains of spirit stones to buy the presence of the Cultivation Council, while the Xu clan was leveraging their heritage to court a sect directly backed by the Lord of the Zhao Province.
And the Bai clan? They were doing absolutely nothing. They were stagnant. Bad fortune and disastrous setbacks just kept happening to them, one after another, eroding their foundation and leaving them politically isolated.
"Dammit all!" Elder Bai Shan suddenly hissed, his face twisting into an ugly, venomous sneer. He slammed his fist onto the table. "If not for that wretched girl, Bai Qingyue, pushing her luck in the secret realm, we would not be in this pathetic position!"
The mention of the exiled daughter caused a ripple of bitter, hateful resentment to wash through the hall.
"She was our golden ticket!" Elder Bai Shan continued, his voice dripping with absolute contempt for the crippled girl. "With her previous Foundation Establishment cultivation at such a young age, she was a peerless genius! She could have easily competed with Su Yin of the Pure Cloud Sect! She was fully prepared to enter the grand competition for the title of Saintess of Zhao!"
Bai Shan pointed an accusing finger at the empty air, as if cursing the ghost of their lost potential. "If she hadn’t arrogantly ventured too deep into that ruins and triggered that Soul Transformation restriction, she would have still been here! She would have gained this clan supreme favor from the Lord of the Zhao Province himself! We would be the ones hosting Envoys and sitting at the right hand of the Lord! But instead, her foolishness crippled her, turning our greatest asset into a useless piece of trash that we had to dump in the outer city slums!"
The elders murmured in bitter agreement. They felt no pity for the agonizing pain Bai Qingyue had suffered, nor did they care about the psychological torment of her meridians being shattered. They only cared about the lost political capital, the shattered dreams of provincial dominance that had burned to ash the day her cultivation was destroyed.
Patriarch Bai Changkong just slowly shook his head, letting out a long, heavy sigh that echoed through the quiet hall.
"What profound bad luck indeed," the Patriarch lamented, his voice hollow. "To lose our best talent in generations to such a misfortune. We pinned the entire future of the Bai clan on her shoulders, and this is what we got. Now, we are left to watch our rivals ascend while we slowly rot in mediocrity."
The Patriarch rubbed his temples, preparing to call the meeting to a close and order the elders to double the guard patrols around their vulnerable spirit stone mines.
But he never got the chance to speak the order.
Without a single moment of warning, the ambient spiritual qi within the grand main hall violently froze. The flickering flames in the spirit-fire braziers instantly turned a chilling, crackling purple before being completely snuffed out, plunging the luxurious hall into dim, terrifying shadows.
Then, the aura enveloped them.
It crashed down upon the entirety of the sprawling Bai clan estate like a collapsing mountain. The sheer, unfathomable density of the spiritual pressure shattered the protective arrays hovering above the pavilion, and struck directly at the souls of every single living being inside.
CRACK!
The floorboards of the main hall instantly spider-webbed under the invisible pressure.
"Gah—!"
Patriarch Bai Changkong, a seasoned Core Formation expert, was violently thrown from his throne. He crashed face-first onto the shattered floor, blood instantly bursting from his nose and lips. The immense pressure pinned him completely flat against the ground, his cultivation utterly paralyzed, rendering him as helpless as a newborn infant.
All around him, the elders suffered the exact same fate. Elder Bai Shan, who had just been cursing Bai Qingyue’s name, was crushed onto his knees so forcefully that his kneecaps audibly shattered, forcing a muffled, agonizing scream from his throat as the spiritual pressure pressed his face into the dirt.
The entire inner circle of the Bai clan was instantly forced into a posture of absolute, groveling submission. The air in the hall became so suffocatingly thick with power intent that none of them could even draw a full breath.
Trembling violently, his face pressed against the cracked floor, Elder Bai Mo managed to shift his bloodshot eyes just enough to look toward the door of the main hall. His heart was completely unraveling beneath the weight of a power he had only experienced a handful of times before.
"Such aura!" Elder Bai Mo gasped. "Nascent Soul realm!"