Silence.
The tea party fell into a deathly silence.
Three seconds later, Lin Qingyue took the lead in clapping.
"Clap, clap, clap."
The applause was crisp, carrying a hint of teasing.
"Brilliant."
Lin Qingyue looked at her own sister, her eyes filled with pure admiration, mixed with a trace of surprise that her lines had been stolen.
"Xiyue, have you been secretly adding points to your Intelligence behind my back lately? This wave of analysis is on another level."
"Go to hell!"
Lin Xiyue puffed out her chest and huffed triumphantly.
"This young lady is simply playing the fool! I'm just too lazy to use my brain with you tactical masters most of the time!"
Su Wan's lips curved upward, the smile completely dispelling the solemnity between her brows. The gaze she cast upon Lin Xiyue was filled with unconcealable admiration and satisfaction.
But she quickly retracted her smile and raised a new question:
"That being said, the Spirit of Pride just said that the Azure Dragon was only corrupted within the last year or two... How reliable is this intelligence?"
"After all, the enemy's words cannot be fully trusted."
This question made Xia Lian and Lin Xiyue turn serious again.
Lin Qingyue, however, simply waved her hand dismissively.
"Don't worry, at this point, it's ninety percent true."
Facing their three bewildered gazes, she explained:
"The best lies are nine truths mixed with one falsehood."
"The Spirit of Pride disguised itself as an elder of the Ena Immortal Alliance, and its core purpose was to deceive us into trusting it."
"Exactly when the Azure Dragon was corrupted is background information that holds no value to its scheme. Misleading us about it would yield no benefit."
"In details it considers irrelevant, it has no need to lie."
These words, like a sharp blade, severed the last doubts in everyone's hearts.
"Alright, since even Xiyue has seen through the essence,"
Lin Qingyue stood up and brushed the pastry crumbs off her hands.
The lazy salted fish from a moment ago had already transformed into a hunter ready to strike.
"Then let's not keep that lonely god waiting too long."
With a flip of her palm, the table, chairs, and tea set on the ground instantly turned into streaks of light and were all stored in her Storage Space.
"Status fully restored, spirits high."
"Everyone, last equipment check."
Lin Qingyue raised her head, her gaze like a sword drawn from its scabbard, piercing straight toward the dark and deep entrance of the hollow tree.
"Since it refuses to crawl down and see us, then we will fight our way up."
"I'd like to see what kind of bastard the master of this so-called 'Perfect Divine Kingdom' really is."
The four finished their preparations and set foot on the Azure Jade Greatway leading to the Jianmu Temple.
The deeper they went, the heavier the sense of deathly silence became.
There was no wind here.
No birdsong.
Not even the rustle of leaves.
Everything was frozen in a rigid state of "perfection."
The angle of each leaf's unfurling seemed measured by the most precise instruments.
The seams of each paving tile were so perfectly flush it was suffocating.
This sense of absolute order was breathtaking at first, but after walking for a while, all that remained was a chill that seeped into one's bones.
This was no vibrant Divine Realm.
This was an exquisitely morbid tomb.
"Have you noticed..."
Su Wan suddenly spoke, her voice very low.
"It's too 'clean' here."
"Isn't clean a good thing?" Lin Xiyue asked bluntly.
"Not that kind of clean."
Lin Qingyue stopped, her slender fingers lightly brushing the Azure Jade railing by the path.
On her fingertips, instead of being spotless, a thick layer of dust had gathered.
"It's deathly silence."
Lin Qingyue rubbed her fingers, and the layer of dust scattered like smoke.
"It has been a very, very long time since any living being has walked here."
"That Exalted Celestial Azure Dragon, I'm afraid, was already a true loner before falling into the erosion."
This layer of dust was not filth.
It was the corpse of time.
Ahead, their vision suddenly opened up.
The scene before them made the four, who were fully prepared for battle, hold their breath in unison.
At the end of the Azure Jade Greatway stood a colossal Jianmu tree, large enough to blot out the entire sky.
It was so massive that it caused one's vision to lose focus and reference.
The trunk was like a continuous mountain range, savagely piercing the clouds.
And at the base of this giant tree, someone had hollowed it out with Divine Power, carving it into a temple so grand it was suffocating.
There were no guards.
Nor was there any need for guards.
The four of them stood before the hundred-meter-tall temple gates, feeling as minuscule as four insignificant specks of dust.
The temple gates slid open silently to the sides.
There was no musty smell of decay, nor the roar of machinery.
The opening process was as smooth as a mirror, without even stirring a single current of air.
Lin Qingyue was the first to step over the threshold, her combat boots striking the light-absorbing black floor.
"Tap."
A crisp sound, infinitely amplified and echoed within the vast hall, finally transforming into a lingering resonance like an ancient bell.
"This is quite the grand display."
A ball of ghostly blue Coldfire ignited on Su Wan's fingertips, its light instantly spreading to illuminate the surroundings.
This was a library.
Or rather, it was an archive whose sole purpose was "recording."
The walls on both sides were not made of brick and stone, but were colossal bookshelves that stretched from the ground to the sky.
They extended all the way to the dark dome beyond sight, densely packed with countless scrolls of uniform size.
The spine of every single scroll was perfectly perpendicular to the shelf.
The spacing was accurate to the millimeter.
This was a non-human, hair-raisingly eerie kind of tidiness.
"The owner of this place must have a terminal case of OCD," Lin Xiyue muttered softly, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms.
"If we messed up even a single hair here, would we be crushed to ash on the spot?"
"Don't touch anything."
Xia Lian held her shortbow, her Ranger's alertness raised to the highest level, her gaze sweeping every inch of shadow like radar.
It was too quiet.
By all rights, the temple's interior should have had magic circles for temperature control and dust removal operating silently.
But at this moment, the air here was frozen.
Lin Qingyue walked to the nearest row of bookshelves.
She did not touch the priceless scrolls, but instead raised her fingertips and gently wiped the edge of a shelf at chest height.
A thick layer of grayish-white powder.
"Look here."
She showed the grime on her fingertips to the others.
"At least one or two years, no one has cleaned this."
Su Wan leaned in to look, her brow furrowed.
"It defies common sense. A temple of this level, even if the owner ignores it, the Autonomous Cleaning Magic Circle should still be functioning. Unless..."
"Unless it personally stopped all activities that it deemed 'meaningless' in its eyes."
Lin Qingyue brushed the dust off her hand, her gaze fixed on the deeper reaches of the great hall.
"Or perhaps, it simply doesn't care if this place gets dirty."
"Doesn't care?" Lin Xiyue was even more confused. "Isn't it Pride? Don't arrogant people care the most about pomp and appearances?"
"There is a kind of Pride called, 'If I don't look at it, it doesn't exist.'"
Lin Qingyue smiled, a hint of cold mockery in her expression.
"Or perhaps, it considers this dust to be part of its 'perfect rule.'"
"After all, without its permission, not even a single speck of dust would dare to drift."
The four continued deeper into the temple.
The further they went, the more oppressive the deathly atmosphere became.
On the pedestals that once displayed divine relics, only bare bases remained.
The everlasting lamps that provided light had long since gone out, their oil dried and caked, staring coldly at the intruders like blind eyes.
This was no place for the living.
It was more like a colossal tomb completely forgotten by time.
"Something's wrong."
Xia Lian stopped abruptly, her ears twitching slightly. This was the sensory feedback unique to the Ranger class.
"No heartbeat, no breathing... not even a single trace of flowing Magic Power."
"A God-level Being concealing its aura is basic procedure."
Lin Qingyue said this, but the staff in her hand had already silently shifted its grip, ready to transform into a spear at any moment.
"That's not what I meant."
Xia Lian shook her head, her face somewhat pale.
"What I mean is... this place is too 'empty'."
"It's like a giant shell with all its internal organs scooped out, leaving only a magnificent skin."
Lin Xiyue silently raised her shield and stepped forward, walking at the very front, her Golden Parry already ready to be unleashed.
"Whatever it is, as long as it dares to show a health bar, I dare to show my shield."
After passing through the seemingly endless corridor of bookshelves, a set of ascending steps appeared ahead.
The steps were also paved with that same light-absorbing black stone, each one perfectly identical in height.
At the end of the steps was a towering platform.
On the platform sat a massive, cold throne.
According to the script, a majestic Dragon God draped in blue scales, whose gaze was too awe-inspiring to meet, should have been seated there.
But when the Coldfire in Su Wan's hand finally illuminated that supreme place...
The four of them stopped breathing all at once.
There was no dragon.
Nor was there a person.
Upon that throne, symbolizing supreme authority and absolute Order, lay only a limp, massive, jet-black, and incessantly writhing unidentified mass.