Chapter 35: Dream 2
The courtyard had long since fallen into silence, save for the faint howling of spiritual wind still swirling in chaotic ripples around Meng Hao. Blood stained the white stone ground in vivid streaks, the remnants of those who had dared to mock, threaten, and underestimate him.
His robes fluttered faintly in the breeze as he turned his cold gaze toward the two remaining cultivators—Su Mei and Wang Mei—the so-called geniuses of their sects, once proud and untouchable, now trembling before a power they couldn’t defy.
Meng Hao’s voice cut through the silence like a cold knife. "Do you want to say anything else?"
His tone was calm—too calm. It wasn’t the calm of mercy, but the stillness before an execution. That terrible quiet that came when fate had already been decided.
Su Mei’s lips quivered. Her knees were bloodied from kneeling too long under the pressure of his aura, her pride long shattered. But her mouth stayed shut. There was no salvation in words anymore.
Beside her, Wang Mei clenched her fists. Though her body trembled with fear, she bit down on her tongue, forcing the haze of dread from her mind. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she took a shaky breath, then looked up at Meng Hao with defiance in her eyes—defiance born not from courage, but desperation.
"You... you leave us now, and this will end here," she said, voice cracking. "Don’t think you can kill me and walk away unharmed. I am the only daughter of the fifth elder of the Ice Embodiment Palace. You think you’ll get away with this?"
Her tone grew sharper, bolder as she spoke the name of her sect. "My mother... my mother is an elder! A true Nascent Soul Realm cultivator! You may have stepped into Golden Core, but that’s nothing in front of her!"
The name hung in the air like a curse.
A few disciples still watching from the shadows gasped.
The Ice Embodiment Palace was one of the Ten Great Powers of the Northern Continent. Every elder was an existence capable of freezing rivers with a gesture, of shattering mountains with a wave of their sleeves.
To provoke them was to provoke a storm that could devour entire sects.