The withered Divine.

Lang Haoye wasn't quite sure what words could be used to describe his current experience. His opponent was clearly weaker in terms of cultivation, yet the pressure he put out without even moving a finger left him on his knees with no way of even crawling forward. Not even his exalted grand-father had ever brought him to a state like this, much less a stranger he had never heard about before.

But the worst of it all was the eyes of the youth standing just a short distance away, those ghastly grey eyes. No pride, no arrogance, he had brought a young master from the Lang clan to his knees yet he didn't seem to feel a single thing about it. The only thing his eyes conveyed was an indifferent coldness, to the point where Lang Haoye wondered if he even registered in the youth's eyes.

The youth's pupils moved slightly sideways, signalling the elders that had been guiding him through the palace. They trembled slightly but quickly stepped forward and ignored Lang Haoye, the youth not even casting a second glance at him.

Indignation, embarrassment, anger, Lang Haoye wasn't quite sure what he was feeling at this moment. Utter disregard, a disregard brought about by a truly vast difference in strength. And for the elders to even ignore him like that, the youth clearly had an extremely high backing, one that should be able to at least compete with his Lang clan.

Terrifying strength, a grand backing, and from looking at their rings it seemed like he also had a loving and beautiful wife. Very clearly, the cold youth was one who had the great fortune of being born with everything, someone descended from a lucky star so to speak, and that only made Lang Haoye even more indignant.

Yao Jun stopped bothering with Lang Haoye and his men after he stepped past them, at least on the surface. He still spread out his senses a bit further, part of his concentration locking onto Lang Haoye and observing his every move. If he were to make a single move that Yao Jun judged as dangerous then he would use his Human God Gate to take over both Lang Haoye and the men he brought with him. Were it not for the fact that he didn't know the true depths of the Lang clan, and whether or not they could detect the power of the Human God Gate, then he would have already used this course of action.

The elders had increased their pace slightly as they moved through the room where Lang Haoye had just caused a ruckus, they clearly wanted this to end as fast as possible. They passed through a few more hallways before they reached an empty stone room, six of the elders slicing open their palms and scribbling some symbols on the ground using their own blood.

They then channelled their Qi into the bloody runes and made them glow with an eerie purple light, a descending staircase revealing itself. The elders closed the wounds on their palms and stepped onto the stairs to show that they were safe, gesturing respectfully for Yao Jun to follow them.

The stairs went down for what felt like a few hundred metres, eventually evening out as they reached a large dome-shaped room. The floor of the room seemed to be covered in a strange cool metal, the chill from it wiggling its way up Yao Jun's body from his feet. The elders cupped their hands and bowed deeply, slowly retreating up the stairs again.

"This is the place, your magnificence. Please do not be careless, it may have weakened drastically but it is still a true Divine Beast, a poisonous one at that."

They wanted to give him a few more warnings, but thinking about the place he came from they were far too scared of offending him on accident. Now they could just hope that he would finish his business here and then leave, it would truly be too nerve-wracking if he stayed here for much longer.

Yao Jun waved casually at the elders as they retreated and then turned his gaze onto the sole structure in this seven-kilometre wide underground dome. Calling it a structure wasn't exactly correct, as the thing in question was the three-kilometre long body of the Divine Beast, tens of shackles stabbed into its body and chaining it to the formation that covered the floor beneath it.

The Soul-Fang Emperor looked mostly like a normal brown spider covered in small spikes, but it had two pincers like a scorpion and a pair of fangs that looked like they belonged on a sabretooth tiger rather than a spider. It was probably a terribly intimidating beast once upon a time, but the current it had deteriorated to a rather poor state, its prided exoskeleton shrivelled and soft-looking. Out of the 11 pairs of eyes on its head, only three seemed to still work, and all of them were currently looking at Yao Jun.

"A foreign Authority Holder, and one with more authority than most could ever dream of holding. Tell me, has my imprisonment come to an end, or am I being moved over to a different type of prison?"

The spider didn't speak using the human language, it simply released a few clicking sounds that were automatically translated by Yao Jun's God Gate. Yao Jun's gaze roamed over the chained beast, it really was quite a pitiful state it had ended up in, sealed down here for innumerable years, forced to watch itself wither away while suffering. As for why Yao Jun felt pity towards its state, it was simply because it was a state he himself wouldn't want to end up in. Of course, his momentary pity didn't block out the actual reason as to why he came here.

"I want some of your blood, about half of it should be enough."

The spider was quite a bit smaller than the Dragonfish that Yao Jun had killed previously, but when it came to Divine Beasts it wasn't so much about the quantity of blood as it was the quality. And since this beast was quite a bit smaller, its bloodline was a bit denser, so he would still only need about half of its blood to complete the evolution. The green eyes of the spider turned slightly as it clicked in retort, quickly guessing something.

"My blood? Just some blood shouldn't serve any pu... No, are you perhaps trying to evolve one of your beasts into a Divine Beast? Ah, that is a privilege Authority Holders of your level have, isn't it."

The eyes of the spider swam slightly, all moving off in different directions as it seemed to sink into its own world. It had asked him a question, but by the time its eyes returned to focus on him, it had already moved on to a different topic.

"Before I give you an answer, I would like for you to listen to a request of mine. I wish to look at your memories, I want to know exactly who it is that desires my blood. Worry not, I, Qing Jiu Ye Kong, swear an oath that I will not harm you or inconvenience you, I will simply peek at some of your more shallow memories."

Yao Jun had been prepared for a request, he couldn't really expect to acquire so much Divine Beast blood for nothing after all. But for the request to be that it could peek into his memories, and for it to even be willing to swear an oath, were both things outside of Yao Jun's expectations.

Yao Jun gave it a bit of thought in silence, glancing over at Guo Luo after a few seconds. Seeing her give him an affirmative nod, he turned his gaze onto the spider again and stepped forward while nodding his head. It had already sworn an oath so things should be fine, but he still had Little Gray, Sirius, Duj Xiao, and Xuhuan Huo stay ready to act at a moment's notice.

He walked up to the spider and placed his hand on its head, and just as he expected, its tough exoskeleton had withered to a point where it felt more like leather. A weak stream of energy entered Yao Jun's body through his palm, and just as the spider promised, the energy was so weak that it couldn't hurt him, and it only skimmed through his memories for a quick moment. The spider pulled back the energy after it finished peeking at his memories, its dim eyes lighting up with an exceedingly faint light as it clicked amusedly.

"Kahaha, so that's what you are. What fine viciousness, what wonderful bloodlust. Very well, Nine Heavens Demon God Yao Jun, I accept your wicked nature and will leave my resentment with you. I look forward to the day that my poison helps you suffocate this entire accursed universe."

Its words were practically dripping with venom and hatred, but how could it not feel like that after having been sealed here for so long? It closed its remaining eyes and prodded at Yao Jun's God Gate, allowing itself to be absorbed into the God Gate, dissolving into pure energy and bloodline that were channelled into the sole poison-type beast inside Yao Jun's God Gate, Du Xiao.

It was a bit different from the way he used the refined Sebettu blood or the Dragonfish's corpse to evolve Jun Tuan and Yong Bo. It was more effective in a sense, but how many Divine Beasts were willing to let themselves get absorbed and dissolved like that? Yao Jun assured Du Xiao that she could just focus on her evolution along with the two others, turning his gaze onto the now empty spot in front of him.

"I wasn't expecting that, it seems like its imprisonment truly ate away at its mind."

It didn't even try to become a new member of his God Gate, it had already been imprisoned for so long that death was the best release for it. Entering Yao Jun's God Gate as one of his beasts would just be another form of imprisonment, no matter what his personality was like. Yao Jun closed his eyes for a few seconds and offered a silent thanks to the departed spider, eventually turning around and flashing Guo Luo a light smile.

"I've got nothing else left to do here so we can leave. The other targets are all on different planets so we can put some distance between us and the Lang clan just in case they want to try something. There also shouldn't be any particularly troublesome targets so we probably have a slight bit of leeway to take it easy with Little Lan."

--

Lang Haoye didn't linger in the palace of the Juelei clan after his encounter with Yao Jun, he headed for the largest and most decadent inn that the city had. He had already rented a room there so he was able to just head up to it and send out the report he had to deliver. Once he sent the report, all that was left for him to do was wait.

And sure enough, four days after he sent his report, there was a light knock on the door to his room. The door was slowly pushed open after the knock sounded out, but Lang Haoye didn't even wait to check who came in, he simply dropped to his knee straight away and lowered his head.

"Forgive me, Elder Brother, I failed to acquire the Soul-Fang Emperor's blood, they handed it to an unknown youth instead."

The man who entered the room had a rather delicate frame, long silver hair flowing down his back. His aura seemed to merge with the surroundings to the point where it was hard to accurately sense him, but that alone made him scary enough to those who knew what it represented. The man, Lang Tian Kong, tilted his head slightly, observing his kneeling brother with his yellow eyes.

"They handed it to someone else? It seems that said person must have quite the backing, we should probably do some shallow investigating to check if we can interact with them in the future."

There was no way they would hand the blood to some nobody when their Lang clan was asking for it so intently, the only explanation was that the person had a status that was at least as scary as their Lang clan. Lang Kong didn't immediately say anything else, Lang Haoye shivering slightly as he found himself unable to restrain his curiosity any longer.

"...Will... Will we be able to find a different type of payment?"

Lang Haoye knew exactly what sort of use his elder brother had for that Divine Beast blood, they would be able to buy a truly heaven-shaking weapon if they had it. Of course, part of the reason they could use that blood to buy that weapon was their background and their connections, it wasn't just something anyone could buy. Lang Haoye hoped for the best, but Lang Kong shook his head after a bit of thought.

"Hard to say, but probably not. She was very particular about what she wanted in return, but that's only to be expected when the item in question is a weapon forged using materials from a major Origin Beast."

Origin Beasts, Demonic beasts born alongside a universe. There were only so many Major Universes in this multiverse so it only became harder and harder to acquire materials from major Origin Beasts. But their effect was truly terrifying, even minor universes could be split apart using weapons forged from major Origin Beasts, especially if they were Origin Beasts born alongside a pillar universe. Lang Haoye was very clear on this, so he knew how grave his error was, but Lang Kong cut off his apology with a wave of his hand.

"Forg..."

"Don't bother, it's not like there was anything you could do in a situation like that. We'll have to settle for just buying some cruder materials from major Origin Beasts, forging at least a few arrowheads should be possible, at that point we can be much more at ease about the upcoming Six Dawn's Baptism. Let's go, Grandfather will certainly want to see us before we set out."

The Six Dawn's Baptism was fast approaching, it would probably arrive within a year at the latest if they looked at how the various dominions were moving. As such, every organization in the universe was preparing as if their lives were depending on it, grasping at every straw that could strengthen their participants. All the major powers were truly curious, which Empyrean Ruler was it that would snatch the top spot this time around, and which lucky 25 youths would get to experience the Baptism of Six Dawns?