Deep within the towering peaks of the Upper Realm, the air was perpetually thin and thick with sharp spiritual energy. Inside a heavily fortified, secluded chamber of the divine Leopard Sect, the atmosphere was completely frozen.

At the center of the dark room sat an exceptionally handsome man with a face as smooth as jade, but his gaze was as piercing and cold as glacial ice. He wore the sweeping, magnificent golden-trimmed robes of the highest authority.

Three elderly men sat in a lower circle before him, their heads bowed slightly in deep respect.

"The time is finally upon us," the handsome man spoke, his voice echoing with a natural, heavy pressure that made the spiritual crystals on the walls hum softly.

He looked at the three men before him. "Report on the current state of the sacred grounds."

One of the elderly men stepped forward, bowing his head very low. If Lin Wan were to be standing in this room right now, she would instantly recognize this specific old man’s face, his sharp nose, and his piercing, calculating eyes.

He was the same Elder Shen who had previously descended to the lower realm with an overwhelming, oppressive force to forcefully drag her away.

"Clan Leader, everything is perfectly prepared," Elder Shen replied, his voice smooth but laced with an undeniable undercurrent of ambition. "The young master has already endured the standard timeline. Today is the exact day he will finally emerge from the ancestral bloodline pond."

The Clan Leader nodded slowly, his cold eyes narrowing slightly as he rested his chin on his knuckles. "Excellent. The ancestral bloodline is the foundation of our entire tribe’s dominance in this realm. If his awakening is successful, the sect’s future is absolute. You may all leave and prepare for his arrival."

"We obey the Clan Leader’s command," the elders chanted in unison, bowing deeply before retreating from the cold, dark chamber.

As the heavy stone doors clicked shut, Elder Shen walked down the winding mountain path toward his private estate.

His face wore a deeply thoughtful, calculating expression, his fingers twisting inside his long sleeves. The stakes were incredibly high now, and he could not afford a single mistake.

Upon entering the grand, sun drenched courtyard of his private residence, his eyes landed on a young and strikingly beautiful woman who was currently lounging lazily on a plush silk daybed, completely basking in the warm sunlight.

She had long, flowing silver hair that caught the light beautifully, and a delicate, captivating face with sharp, intelligent features.

If someone from the lower realm were to see this woman and Lin Wan standing side by side in the same room, they would instantly mistake them for biological sisters because their facial structures and general appearances were almost completely identical.

The young woman didn’t even bother to stand up or offer a proper greeting when her grandfather entered the courtyard. Instead, she merely shifted her weight slightly, letting out a soft, bored sigh.

Elder Shen’s calculating expression instantly dissolved, replaced by a warm, deeply doting smile as he walked over to the edge of the daybed. "How is my precious little Maomao doing today? Is the sunlight to harsh for your liking?"

The beauty pouted her perky lips, turning her head away with a thoroughly bored, thoroughly irritated expression. "I am perfectly fine, Grandpa. But, I’m completely and utterly bored out of my mind."

Elder Shen chuckled softly, sitting down on a stone stool beside her bed as he looked at her sulking face. "And why is my favorite granddaughter sulking so heavily on such an important day? Tell Grandpa what the problem is."

Shen Mao gritted her teeth slightly, kicking her silk skirts in irritation as she looked up at him. "What is the problem? I’ve been waiting for this supposed young master to come out of that stupid pond for so long, Grandpa! It has been so long that I think I am going to completely melt into this dirt soon! And to make matters worse, Grandpa also chased out every single one of my male toys last week! So of course I am completely bored! I have absolutely nothing to do in this empty courtyard!"

Elder Shen’s doting expression faltered for a fraction of a second, a flicker of severe tension crossing his old eyes before he quickly forced his smile back onto his face.

He reached out, gently patting the girl’s soft silver hair with a firm, warning hand. "Shen Mao, listen to me very carefully. Everything I am doing right now is entirely for your own good, so you must bear with this boredom for just a little while longer."

Shen Mao rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath, "I am tired of bearing with it."

"Be quiet and listen," Elder Shen whispered, his voice dropping into a sharp, low hiss as he leaned closer to her face. "As soon as we get the young master to mate with you, and our grand plan successfully works out, the entire leopard tribe will belong completely to us! Do you understand the depth of that power? Once that happens, you can do absolutely anything you want in this realm! You can have as many male toys as your heart desires, and Grandpa will never bother you about it again!"

Shen Mao’s eyes lit up slightly at the mention of absolute freedom, but her pout remained heavy. "But he is still stuck inside that cave..."

"Which is why you must not be foolish right now," Elder Shen cut her off sharply, his hand tightening slightly on her hair. "Right now, you are absolutely not allowed to do anything that might spoil our plan. If you mess this up, even I will not be able to save you from the Master’s absolute wrath."

The moment the words "the Master’s wrath" echoed through the quiet courtyard, Shen Mao’s beautiful face went completely, utterly pale.

A cold shiver ran down her spine, and she nodded her head frantically, her voice trembling slightly. "I... I understand, Grandpa. I won’t do anything stupid. I promise."

Seeing that Shen Mao thoroughly understood the severe danger of the situation, Elder Shen nodded his head in deep satisfaction, patted her head one last time, and quickly turned around to leave the courtyard to attend to his duties.

The moment her grandfather’s back was completely gone, the submissive, terrified look on Shen Mao’s face instantly vanished, replaced by a venomous, angry snarl. She gritted her teeth so hard they clicked, her fingers clawing deeply into the silk pillows of the daybed.

"I absolutely hate being told what to do," Shen Mao hissed to herself, her beautiful eyes flashing with pure rage. "And I hate it even more because of a young master I haven’t even laid my eyes on yet! What an absolute piece of garbage!"

She stared at the stone wall, remembering the secret details her grandfather had whispered to her a few weeks ago.

The young master actually had a chosen female wife down in the disgusting, low-grade lower realm. The very thought made her blood boil with pure, offended vanity.

"Hmph! Grandfather said he already handled that lowly trash by making a secret deal with the Heavenly Dao of the lower realm," Shen Mao muttered, a cruel, mocking smirk twisting her lips as she smoothed down her silk robes. "By now, that disgusting lower-realm female and her bastard mutt cubs should be completely dead and turned into ash under the heavenly tribulation. Good riddance!"

She stood up from the daybed, pacing around the sunlit courtyard with a heavy, dramatic stomp. "It is already bad enough that this stupid young master is standing directly between me and my absolute freedom. But him already having a wife, even if that wife is currently a dead corpse, is even worse! It makes me completely sick to my stomach! I swear, I truly cannot wait for Grandfather to completely deal with him and that arrogant Sect Master so I can finally have my freedom!"

Meanwhile, on the exact opposite side of the massive divine sect, a completely different and utterly terrifying atmosphere was brewing.

Deep inside a hidden mountain cleft, completely cut off from the rest of the world by ancient, glowing spiritual arrays, sat the sacred ancestral bloodline chamber.

A long line of young, beautiful maidservants stood outside the narrow entrance of the cleft. Their hands were shaking violently as they held heavy silver trays, each tray covered in thick, pristine white spiritual cloths meant for purification.

From deep inside the dark, rocky cleft, the deafening, violent sounds of rushing, boiling water could be heard echoing off the stone walls, sounding like a furious, trapped beast trying to break free.

Inside the hidden cleft, the air was so thick and heavy with raw, ancient pressure that it felt like solid iron.

There, soaking directly inside a massive stone pond, was a magnificent, godlike figure of a man.

His shoulders were incredibly broad, his bare chest sculpted like perfect, unyielding jade, and his powerful aura was gradually intensifying with every single second that passed.

The color of the water inside the massive ancestral pond was not clear—it was a deep, thick, and viscous blood red.

The blood-red water was currently boiling violently, huge bubbles popping against his sculpted chest as dense, intensely hot white steam filled the entire stone cavern, obscuring the ceiling.

The terrifying heat radiating from his body was completely unnatural, so intense that even the highly cultivated maidservants standing near the edge of the pond were being severely affected.

"Ah... it’s too hot... I can’t breathe..." one of the maids whispered, her voice a trembling sob as she tried to hold her silver tray steady.

Every single one of the maids was completely perspiring, their heavy silk clothes entirely soaked through with their own sweat, clinging tightly to their trembling bodies.

The heat rising from the blood-red pond was so destructive that some of the maids standing closest to the water were already crying out in pure agony, the outer layers of their skin turning bright red and literally peeling off their arms from the raw, scalding steam.

"Please... let us leave... I can’t endure this pressure anymore!" another maid wailed, her knees buckling completely as she dropped her silver tray onto the stone floor, the white cloth instantly turning black and scorching from the sheer heat of the air.

At that chaotic moment, the godlike man sitting still inside the boiling, blood-red water suddenly snapped his eyes wide open.

The sudden movement caused the entire stone cavern to violently shake, several large stalactites snapping off the ceiling and crashing into the water.

The color of his eyes instantly began to fluctuate frantically; they shifted from a piercing, brilliant ocean blue to a deep, murderous crimson red, then back to blue again within a single heartbeat.

Then, a terrifying mutation occurred, even the white parts of his eyes completely turned a dark, mystical blue, before the entirety of his vision went completely, violently red.

He blinked his heavy eyelids once, a profound, ancient pressure settling over his gaze. When he opened them again, his iris had permanently stabilized into a piercing, unyielding crimson red.

The man slowly exhaled a low, turbid breath from his chest, but his breath was even hotter than the red water.