397: treason

"Wait!!!"

A sharp and mean shout, containing the pressure of the Hunyuan Realm, suddenly tore through the solemn atmosphere like rending silk! The speaker was an old woman in black robes standing slightly behind the Palace Mistress of Yuqing Palace. Her face was sinister, and her eyes were as sharp as a venomous snake. She was none other than the Head of the Law Enforcement Hall of Yuqing Palace—Elder Xuanyin. She was considered a top-tier expert in the Xuanxiao Great World, with a martial cultivation at the Middle Stage of the Hunyuan Realm and a combat power of approximately 900 Yuan Power!

"Palace Mistress! Fellow Daoists!" Elder Xuanyin took a step forward, a cold aura erupting from her body as she pointed directly at Bai Li on the altar. Her voice carried the indignant grief of being "heartbroken," "Before this girl is crowned, there is a shocking secret concerning the ten-thousand-year Foundation of my Yuqing Palace, the survival of our Sect's sacred object, and even the safety of our Xuanxiao Great World! After much consideration, I must expose it in public to set the record straight!"

The entire venue instantly fell into a dead silence where a pin drop could be heard. All eyes scanned back and forth between Xuanyin and Bai Li in suspicion.

The Palace Mistress of Yuqing Palace frowned slightly, a flash of displeasure crossing her eyes, but she did not stop her immediately: "Xuanyin, today is the coronation ceremony of our Sect's Saintess. What secret do you have that requires such urgency?"

"Palace Mistress, allow me to report!" Elder Xuanyin waved her hand abruptly, and a treasure mirror refined from 'Shadow-Tracing Profound Crystal' rose into the air. The mirror's surface flowed with light and began to slowly manifest blurred images!

In the images, it was clearly the blurred scene outside the Law Pagoda years ago! One could see Bai Li covered in blood, her hands pressed against the wall of the Law Pagoda. A point of emerald light at the center of her brow was dazzlingly bright, continuously pouring into the pagoda! Inside the pagoda, the figure of a man could be vaguely seen enduring inhuman pain.

"Everyone, please look! This is what I forced a backtrack of based on the residual aura on Bai Li, using a time secret technique at the cost of a thousand years of my lifespan," Xuanyin's voice rose, full of instigation. "This was outside the Law Pagoda on the fifth heaven of the 'Primal Extreme Realm Trial' back then! This girl, Bai Li, to save an unidentified man inside the pagoda who was suspected to be a spy from an outer domain, did not hesitate to forcibly activate and burn the Origin of the supreme sacred object protected by my Yuqing Palace for generations—the 'Ten Thousand Tribulations Green Wood Sacred Seed'!"

"Ten Thousand Tribulations Green Wood Sacred Seed?!" The crowd below suddenly exploded! Some Old Ancestors of ancient Sects cried out in shock: "The Innate divine object transformed from a wisp of life Origin during the creation of heaven and earth, containing the power of creation and life? It actually belongs to Yuqing Palace?!"

"To actually give such a heavy treasure to a Disciple, your Yuqing Palace is truly generous!"

"Correct!" Elder Xuanyin had a face full of "grief and indignation." "This Sacred Seed is the root that allows our Sect's 'heavenly sound zither' to communicate with the Great Dao of heaven and earth and evolve supreme immortal music! It is also the greatest reliance for our Sect to strike for the Seven-Star Holy Land status and even to deal with the threat of the Dark Abyss Plane in the future! However!" She suddenly pointed at the piercing green light at the center of Bai Li's brow in the mirror, "For the sake of personal feelings, this girl depleted the Sacred Seed's Origin, causing its spirituality to be greatly damaged and its Foundation to be shaken! This is the first count, the great crime of Sect treason!"

Before her voice had even faded, the image in the mirror suddenly changed! It became extremely dark and eerie! In the image, Bai Li seemed to be in a secret place, in contact with a blurred dark shadow shrouded in a thick Dark Abyss aura! A faint emerald light was being handed from Bai Li's hand to the dark shadow!

"Second!" Elder Xuanyin's voice was like a poisoned icicle. "After years of secret investigation by my Law Enforcement Hall, it was discovered that this girl is actually in collusion with the lurking forces of the Dark Abyss Plane! Her depletion of the Sacred Seed was not simply to save someone, but to use it as a 'letter of intent' in exchange for the power or promises bestowed by the Dark Abyss demons! The crack at the center of her brow is the clear proof that it was forcibly activated and then eroded by the evil power of the Dark Abyss, making it impossible to completely Seal! This is colluding with external enemies, a monstrous crime of betraying the Nine Heavens and all worlds!"

Double charges! Sect treason plus collusion with the enemy!

This accusation was more than a hundred times more serious than simple depletion of a sacred object! Like cold water poured into boiling oil, the entire square completely erupted!

"What?! Colluding with the Dark Abyss?!" "Bai Li is actually a spy?!" "No wonder her cultivation progressed so quickly!" "Traitor! Execute the traitor!" "Strip the Sacred Seed! Search her soul and refine her spirit!" Waves of anger, fear, and greed instantly drowned the square. Countless gazes full of killing intent and scrutiny shot toward the lonely figure on the altar like sharp arrows.

Bai Li felt as if she had been struck by lightning. Her face was as pale as golden paper, and her delicate body trembled violently. She looked at the forged images in the mirror that completely inverted black and white and were extremely malicious, and listened to the mountain-like shouts of "execute" from below. A cold despair instantly seized her heart.

She looked at her Revered Master on the high platform, whom she respected like a deity, her eyes filled with unbelievable grievance and pleading: "Revered Master! It's not like that! That is something I was born with as a Seal! Junior Martial Uncle Xuanyin is framing me! That Dark Abyss image is purely..."

"Silence!"

The Palace Mistress of Yuqing Palace's shout suddenly exploded like a thunderclap from the Nine Heavens. A terrifying Saintly pressure crashed down like Mount Tai, forcibly crushing Bai Li's unfinished explanation into bloody foam in her throat. She stood in the clouds, her face as dark as ink-jade dipped in ice, her eyes surging with stormy waves—there was the shock of being stung by the "evidence," the heart-wrenching pain of losing a beloved Disciple, but in the end, all these emotions were swallowed by a cold decisiveness of being pushed to the edge of a cliff.

Her gaze was fixed on the center of Bai Li's brow, where an emerald crack was becoming clearer with the surge of emotions. The life aura escaping from it was so pure it was piercing, but at this moment, it had become the most eye-catching evidence of her crime.

The defect of the Sacred Seed was an iron-clad fact, yet Bai Li had never revealed a single reason to her. The accusation of colluding with the Dark Abyss touched the reverse scale of the Primal Plane. She was the Palace Mistress of Yuqing Palace, not just an ordinary protective Master. Right now, the gazes of countless allies were staring intently at her, and the hostile forces in the shadows had already sharpened their claws. The Sect's thousand-year reputation, the Foundation of its heritage, and even the stability of the entire Xuanxiao Great World were all ten thousand times heavier than that bit of Master-Disciple sentiment.

At this moment, she had no way to retreat. And in this gap of life-and-death decision, a thought that even she herself found terrifying quietly sprouted in her heart—that Ten Thousand Tribulations Green Wood Sacred Seed actually revealed a hint of soul-stirring temptation in her eyes at this moment.

That sliver of covetousness unexpectedly coiled around her heart like a vine, carrying a secret heat. She looked at the increasingly clear emerald green at the center of Bai Li's brow, and her fingertips actually went slightly numb uncontrollably. This thought came so abruptly, yet so logically—since it was "evidence," if such a sacred object could be taken for her own use, for the Sect and for the Great Dao, wouldn't it be a matter of "killing two birds with one stone"?

She suddenly clenched her hands inside her sleeves, her knuckles turning white. Her mind, which had just been torn between righteousness and personal feelings, was now hit hard by this sudden greed. In the decisiveness of her eyes, a layer of even more complex gloom was quietly cast.

"Bai Li..." The Palace Mistress of Yuqing Palace's voice carried a hint of imperceptible hoarseness, but it was as cold as ten-thousand-year profound ice, "This seat... is... too disappointed in you!" The word 'disappointed' was as heavy as a thousand jun, completely severing their Master-Disciple bond!