Old Madam Ma appeared, and her words immediately silenced everyone.
Moments ago, there had still been some murmuring.
Now, absolute silence reigned.
Those few old fellows trembled in fear.
As members of the Luo family, and from the elder generation at that, how could they not know about the Chu family's affairs?
Even more so, they knew of the Chu family's former status.
The charge of inciting mutiny was enough to see them dead ten times over.
The group of old fellows, who had held onto a sliver of hope, now shivered uncontrollably and fell to the ground.
At this moment, Chu Tian was staring intently.
His soul force surged, subtly creating a sense of pressure.
Everyone present shivered.
He stroked his chin and pondered.
"Hmm... then..."
He deliberately spoke slowly, glancing at Luo Luo, thinking, *This girl, why don't you say something? Do you really want to see these old guys dead?*
Luo Luo had been about to step forward when Granny Ma suddenly appeared.
She stopped in her tracks.
Seeing Chu Tian's gaze, she immediately understood.
She quickly took a couple of steps forward.
"Granny Ma, you've spoken too harshly. The elders were thinking of the overall situation. For Luo Luo's sake, let's spare them this time!"
Old Madam Ma remained unmoved.
"Please, Family Head, instruct us!"
Chu Tian's face twitched. This Granny Ma was truly wasting her talent by not acting.
Her serious expression did not seem feigned at all.
"Cough... Hmm... Since my Luo Luo is pleading for you, then you old nuisances, get out!"
Chu Tian exuded an imposing aura, truly possessing the bearing of a superior.
The bodies of those dozen or so pig-headed old men, which had been tense, instantly relaxed.
They no longer cared if Chu Tian told them to go down or to scram.
They scrambled to their feet and made for the great hall.
"Stop..."
Just as the one at the very front reached the entrance of the great hall, about to step out, Chu Tian's voice rang out again.
The few old men froze, turning around with a tremble.
They thought, *This brat isn't going to go back on his word, is he?*
"Hmm... I suddenly realized that letting you leave like this is too lenient!"
Chu Tian stated calmly. The hearts of those old fellows pounded wildly. *Too lenient?*
Just now, they had been slapped across the face in front of nearly all their peers in the martial arts world.
They would likely be too ashamed to face anyone in the future.
"Although my Luo Luo has pleaded for you, the fact remains that you incited mutiny. While death may be avoided... a living sin cannot escape!
After you return, take down the nameplates of your Elder Council yourselves and replace them with 'Elderly Care Home'.
From now on... the Luo Family's Elderly Care Home shall not participate in any political affairs whatsoever!"
Chu Tian finally made his decision regarding their punishment.
The eyes of the old men flickered, but they dared not utter a word of complaint.
Even if they were unwilling in their hearts, it was no use.
Before Chu Tian's appearance, their Luo family was the head of the eight great families.
Their Elder Council naturally held significant influence and often sought to make its presence known.
Now... Chu Tian had appeared.
The Chu family had also reappeared.
Even more infuriatingly, this brat was impossibly strong.
And everyone seemed to support him.
When they had previously shouted for Chu Tian to be driven out, not a single Luo family disciple had moved.
Given this, the existence of their Elder Council was no longer necessary.
Yet, Chu Tian had made this very point the punishment.
It was a complete humiliation to them.
In front of the entire martial arts world, before all the sect leaders, it was announced to the world.
The Luo Family's Elder Council had become an Elderly Care Home!
The matter was now completely settled.
Chu Tian, seated on the throne, rose to his feet.
With a wave of his hand, the large ornate chair that Luo Luo had been sitting in was absorbed into his soul space.
With another wave, Luo Yi Yi, Chen Yu Er, and Zhang Cheng Cheng cried out in surprise.
They flew towards him, landing directly on the throne behind Chu Tian.
"Well, you all continue your meeting. My squad and I are departing first!"
Chu Tian declared, and under everyone's astonished gazes, he began to walk away.
"Brother... you..."
Luo Luo stood up, stunned. She had been waiting for Chu Tian,
to hear how he would allocate tasks for this battle, which was a matter of life and death for everyone.
Yet Chu Tian was about to wash his hands of it all.
"Oh, right. Keep communication channels open at all times. Once we've taken down that target, you can assign people to guard it.
Your job is to clean up the stragglers.
Investigate those who have defected to Shenhai Palace, those who have compromised. If they have committed no evil, then it's up to you.
But... for those who genuinely joined them..."
Chu Tian paused here, his eyes narrowing.
A killing intent permeated him.
"Kill them without mercy!"
With these three words, everyone present felt a chill run through them.
Simultaneously, it was visible that Chu Tian's killing aura had become substantive, radiating a scarlet hue mixed with blood mist.
The eyes of these former powerhouses flickered.
There were only two ways to amplify killing intent.
One, a killing intent attribute like Gao Kai's.
The other, accumulated from killing countless beings.
Clearly, Chu Tian belonged to the latter.
Such dense killing intent, how many beings would it take to accumulate?
Chu Tian's lips curved slightly. Seeing that his point had been made,
he subtly winked at Luo Luo and the other two.
The next moment, he vanished without a trace.
He reappeared outside the entrance to the small world.
On the barren mountaintop, those who had entered with Chu Tian were all gathered here.
Wei Du, Old Yang, Old Li, and Xiao Long Nü had also returned.
Below, what Chu Tian needed to do next was... a decapitation operation.
His target was all locations within the Dragon Country where spiritual energy spheres had appeared.
According to what he understood, those were the strongholds of Shenhai Palace.
The people of Shenhai Palace could move freely in areas where spiritual energy was sufficiently concentrated.
As if they were in seawater...
"Boss, I've compiled the information I've gathered. Within the Dragon Country, there's a total of one spiritual energy leakage point. They call that thing a Spiritual Energy Pearl! Take a look at the locations..."
Ma Deju took out a map and spread it on the ground.
The locations were already marked. He pointed to the spots on it.
Everyone gathered around. The seven marked locations were displayed.
Chu Tian glanced at them and immediately understood.
The closest location to them was only a few hundred li away,
also within the Taihang Mountains, in a primeval forest.
He had been to the Liaozhong area of Liaoning Province before; the entire city had been evacuated.
Where the original residents had gone, no one knew.
What Chu Tian worried about most was Shenhai Palace occupying major cities and densely populated areas.
Seeing this location, Chu Tian couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
However, he also became curious. Were the spiritual energy spheres created by these people random, or did they follow some pattern he was unaware of?
Looking at these seven marked locations alone, he couldn't discern anything.
"Huh, is this map the entire Dragon Country?"
Suddenly, Old Yang exclaimed, crouching down.
"Yes, it's the latest map of the entire Dragon Country," Ma Deju replied.
"Did you find something?" Chu Tian pressed.
"Remarkable! No wonder your country is called the Dragon Country," Old Yang said.
"What do you mean?"
Old Yang's words immediately piqued everyone's interest.
"Look, here..."
Old Yang pointed. Starting from the eastern Pamir Plateau and stretching across Xinjiang and Tibet, this mountain range extended into Qinghai, spanning about 2,500 kilometers.
"This is clearly a dragon, or rather, a dragon with a broken head."
"What? Little Yang, don't lie to me. You understand this stuff too?" Old Li, taking a swig of wine beside him, scoffed.
Old Yang didn't reply, continuing to examine the map closely.
Wei Du, however, chuckled.
"You underestimate him. You only know him as the 'Genius God of War,' but do you know his other, lesser-known but very famous title?"
"Lesser-known? Very famous?" Old Li tilted his head.
"Have you heard of 'Earth-Grubbing Rat'?"
Wei Du looked at Old Yang. Although Old Yang was crouched on the ground looking at the map,
he still rolled his eyes.
"What? You mean this kid, the notorious Earth-Grubbing Rat from the Sea of Death who specializes in digging up ancestral graves?"
Old Li, who usually only cared about wine and nothing else,
had still heard of the title Earth-Grubbing Rat.
"Haha, yes, that's him. But the grave robbing part isn't true," Wei Du said, then stopped.
This left everyone in suspense, all wanting to know why the genius God of War had abandoned his post on the Sea of Death
to go digging.
"I was searching for dragon veins. Legend has it that several dragon veins lie beneath the Sea of Death, but alas, I dug for a long time without finding any.
Unexpectedly... here, there are three and a half laid out in plain sight!"
Old Yang said casually, explaining the reason.
Everyone was puzzled, including Chu Tian.
Old Yang was not stingy and pointed to the broken mountain ridge he had just mentioned.
"This mountain ridge..."
"This is the Kunlun Mountains!" Ma Deju interjected.
"Yes... the Kunlun Mountains were originally a great dragon, but its head is broken. A pity...
However, from the place where the head broke, three smaller dragons extend."
As Old Yang spoke, he pointed and drew on the map.
The Yinshan Mountains.
The Qinling Mountains.
The Tunshan Mountains.
What were originally fragmented mountain ranges and rivers were connected into three lines by Old Yang's hand.
Their tails all connected to the Kunlun Mountains.
"I don't know if this broken dragon is dead, but if it's not, it's truly extraordinary. It's said to be an Ancestral Dragon. If I have the chance, I must go and see it!"
After Old Yang finished, he stood up.
The map he had redrawn looked different.
The seven marked locations made by Ma Deju were precisely distributed along these three dragon veins.
"I suspect that these spiritual energy spheres you speak of are not actually releasing spiritual energy, but are in fact absorbing dragon qi!
The spiritual energy they release, I tried to absorb it, it's impure and carries an indescribable aura."
Old Yang finally gave his definitive conclusion.
Everyone frowned, and a chill ran down their spines.
If what Old Yang said was true, then Shenhai Palace's scheme might have a different purpose.
It might not be what they saw on the surface.
Previously, even Chu Tian had believed that Shenhai Palace merely wanted to rise, break free from the constraints of the sea, and gain freedom!
They wanted to reshuffle everything, eliminating all forces that threatened them.
Ultimately, they would keep a portion of ordinary humans as their servants.
"Could it be a coincidence? Shenhai Palace doesn't just set up these spiritual energy spheres in the Dragon Country!"
Gao Kai pondered for a long time before finally speaking.
His statement was immediately met with agreement from several others.
"Who says only your Dragon Country has dragon veins? Look, the dragon's head extends to... this is... the Korean Peninsula?" Old Yang pointed.
Because the Korean Peninsula was very close to the Dragon Country, the map of the Dragon Country also included a portion of its edge.
"Dragon veins are called veins because they are not truly formed from dragons.
They are the bloodlines of a star, similar to the blood vessels in our bodies.
However, a star's blood vessels do not carry blood, but rather the fortune and power of a star.
They are called dragon veins because of the direction, undulation, turns, and changes of the mountain ranges.
Because dragons are adept at change, they can be large or small, bend or stretch, hide or appear, fly or submerge.
Mountain formations are as varied as dragons, hence the name 'dragon.'
There are also dragon veins on flat ground, marked by micro-topography and water flow.
Do you understand now?"
Old Yang spoke eloquently, clearly an expert in this field.
Seeing that everyone was silent, he added a final sentence.
"To confirm if my judgment is correct, you can gather some information to determine the locations of these damn spiritual energy spheres.
See if they are all on the dragon veins, and then you'll know!"
His last sentence struck a chord with everyone.
Of course, this did not include Chu Tian.
Old Yang was quite reliable. He rarely said anything without good reason.
If he said something, it was almost certainly accurate.
"Alright, Brother Ma, go gather more information! The rest of us, let's take down the nearest one together!"
Chu Tian did not want to divide their forces too much, preferring to concentrate their strength on a single point.
This way, they could handle any difficult enemies they might encounter.
However, Ma Deju was not happy.
"I say, Brother Tian, I want to fight too! Besides, you don't know that satellite communications with foreign countries are all cut off now, so we can't get any news from other countries!"
Ma Deju said with a bitter face. As the task of intelligence fell to him, he naturally didn't want to do it.
"Hmm?" Hearing his words, Chu Tian was also taken aback.
He truly didn't know that a year ago, when Shenhai Palace first landed, they could still obtain information from abroad.
As countries fell, they seemed to have become invisible.
They disappeared one by one from global network communications.
It was as if global network coverage had developed blind spots.
Even the Heavenly Dao World was no exception.
It seemed as though bugs had appeared in the Heavenly Dao World.
All private messaging had issues.
Players could only communicate with those in their own battle zones.
They could not privately message or send any information to players elsewhere.
Chu Tian was unaware of these developments.
After returning, he hadn't yet paid attention to the Heavenly Dao World.
Furthermore, that old fellow Dao Tian hadn't appeared for a long time.
When Ma Deju explained these situations,
Chu Tian was somewhat shocked. The Heavenly Dao World was immensely powerful.
Dao Tian had once told him that the birth of the Heavenly Dao World was a product of the technology from the First Universe that he had created.
The signal transmission even acted upon every helmet, virtual cockpit, and other devices.
In Earth's terms, the main server, or optical computer, was not fixed in location.
Because Dao Tian said that as long as there was any Heavenly Dao World device on Earth,
the Heavenly Dao World would not be interrupted.
In other words, the so-called optical computer or main server was fluid.
It was precisely because of this existence that all hackers were unable to find any trace.
Thinking of this, Chu Tian felt that such an issue as the inability to private message or send information in the Heavenly Dao World should not occur.
Yet, it had happened. Why?