Chapter 10: Chapter 10
Elara cast Caden a surprised glance, a faint trace of astonishment slipping into her voice. "You really are quite a character. To settle yourself this quickly when life and death are staring you in the face."
"However, since you are already a dying man, there is no harm in telling you the truth."
"The Sixth Heaven and Earth Upheaval is drawing near, and the lifespan of my Demonic Cult’s Patriarch is approaching its end. But so long as we obtain the Eternal Pine Pill, he can extend his life by another five hundred years."
"By that time, riding on the fortuitous opportunities thrown up by the Sixth Heaven and Earth Upheaval, his cultivation will surely climb to an even higher level."
"As for the Eternal Pine Pill being nothing more than an unfinished product, you have no need to worry on that account. Our Demonic Cult will invite a sixth-grade alchemist from beyond our borders to refine it anew."
"But you needn’t fret too much either. In the future, when my Patriarch sweeps Silver Willow Dynasty clean, the people of this land will soon come to keep you company."
"Rest assured, that day is not far off at all."
Elara looked at Caden, whose face was already as pale as dead ashes, and a flicker of mockery danced through her eyes.
The Demonic Cult Patriarch is actually still alive! That was a peerless figure from a thousand years ago, a man in no way inferior to the first Emperor himself!
Rumor had it that a thousand years ago, he had already stood within the realm of a Heaven and Earth Deity.
Elara’s words struck like a heavy bomb dropped straight into Caden Veil’s mind, shaking him violently.
But what shocked Caden even more deeply was the imminent arrival of the Sixth Heaven and Earth Upheaval that Elara had just casually spoken of.
The cycle of heaven and earth is restarting! The Heaven and Earth Upheaval is upon us once more! Caden abruptly turned his gaze toward Maren, his eyes brimming with a wild, half-mad ecstasy.
The lineage of alchemy had long since declined, and it had become extraordinarily difficult for Silver Willow to produce even a single fourth-grade alchemist anymore.
Now that another Heaven and Earth Upheaval was about to descend, the path of alchemy would no doubt flourish all over again.
With Maren’s talent in alchemy, during this coming Heaven and Earth Upheaval, she might very well grow into another figure like their own ancestor, Raiden Veil.
Three hundred years ago, the ninth-generation Patriarch had ordered the Veil Manor to cast aside alchemy and take up martial arts. Looking back at it now, that might not have been the wisest decision after all.
Aside from the Imperial Family, profound martial arts cultivation methods had always been held tightly in the hands of millennium-old factions like the Eight Great Families of the Capital.
The Veil Manor had once been an alchemy family through and through, and so they had never possessed any truly profound martial arts manuals of their own.
Because of that, in the three hundred years since the change, they had not produced even a single Mortal Supreme.
Looking across the entire capital, the Veil Manor of today could, at best, only be considered a second-rate family.
The grand prestige they had once held a thousand years ago as one of the Four Great Families of Silver Willow was long, long gone.
But now, in Maren, Caden could finally see the hope of restoring the Veil Manor’s lost millennium of glory.
Today, anyone may die, but Maren alone must survive.
A flash of absolute resolve crossed Caden’s eyes. Burning the vital blood qi running through his entire body, he slammed a palm down hard onto the grand chair beside him.
In that instant, the eight coiled-dragon pillars within the main hall began to give off a faint glow. Following that, eight pillars of brilliant light shot straight up into the sky, sealing the entire Veil Manor inside their reach.
Then, with a speed like lightning, he grabbed hold of Maren standing nearby and hurled her bodily straight out beyond the formation’s boundaries.
Immediately after, he pulled out a scroll and an ancient piece of jade from within his robes, pressing them firmly into Maren’s embrace as he shouted at the top of his voice, "Maren, the Sixth Heaven and Earth Upheaval is arriving soon!"
"Our ancestor’s secret realm is bound to resurface somewhere in Silver Willow. Follow the markings on this scroll, and you will definitely be able to find it."
"So long as you obtain the fortuitous encounters waiting inside that secret realm, you will have the power one day to avenge the Veil Manor!"
"You old dog, you actually have some nerve. You’d rather sacrifice every single soul in the entire Veil Manor just to leave that little girl a sliver of hope for survival."
Standing in the very heart of the grand formation, Elara’s eyes filled with a trace of mockery. She wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the formation that had suddenly flared to life around them.
"Did you really think the Silver Willow Imperial Family didn’t know about the formation your Veil Manor has kept hidden away for a thousand years?"
"The outside of the Veil Manor has long since been surrounded by my Demonic Cult’s disciples, sealed off so tightly that not even a drop of water could leak through. That little girl is only at the Innate Realm. Do you really think she still has any hope at all of surviving?!"
Hearing Elara’s words, Caden’s eyes filled with the grey of dead ashes. He slumped powerlessly against the back of his chair, completely bereft of any will to fight.
