But at this moment, he could only brace himself and reply, "I have already ordered my men to increase patrols around the Imperial Examination Hall. If there is any disturbance..."

"Patrols?"

The Empress scoffed, and her Bone Staff suddenly struck the ground with a THUD.

In response, countless dark red patterns emerged on the floor tiles of the entire Purple Extreme Hall. These patterns formed an Array painted with a mixture of Cinnabar and Jiao Blood, designed to gather Spiritual Qi and nurture Blood Essence.

The Array pulsed faintly, and both Pei Jian and Guo Lang let out muffled groans as thin trickles of blood seeped from their seven orifices.

Cao An suddenly shrieked, "Your Majesty! This old servant just received a secret report. That new disciple the Taoist Sect took in..."

Before he could finish, the Empress’s cloudy eyes swiveled toward him, startling the old eunuch into immediate silence.

"Xu Yunfan, is it? I am aware."

The Empress slowly spoke the name, the corners of her mouth twisting into a strange arc. "A disciple of the Celestial Craft Cave, achieved Great Success in the Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm in three months... COUGH, COUGH... That old fiend Bi Yuan certainly found himself a treasure. These cancerous Sects... their Destiny truly is unending."

The Empress’s skeletal fingers suddenly splayed open, a terrifying suction force erupting from her palm.

A Bronze Lamp stand ten zhangs away emitted a metallic groan, unable to bear the strain. Its gilded coiling dragon patterns disintegrated inch by inch under the immense, invisible force. The entire stand, like dough kneaded by an unseen hand, collapsed in the blink of an eye into a fist-sized metal lump.

True Qi pulsed in her palm, and amid a piercing SIZZLE, the lump of Bronze turned into fine, gold-red sand. It shimmered with an eerie luster, as if it had been refined by an invisible flame.

The Golden Sand rustled down onto the eyeball-shaped gem at the top of her Bone Staff. The grayish-white eyeball suddenly trembled violently, its pupil contracting to the size of a pinprick.

Countless blood-colored veins surfaced on the staff’s shaft, greedily devouring the Golden Sand like awakening blood vessels.

As the last streak of gold-red light vanished into the staff, the Bone Staff fed back several wisps of dark red Vitality. The energy burrowed into the Empress’s cracked skin like a living thing. A strange flush immediately appeared in her deep-set eye sockets, and her sunken chest rose slightly.

But this surge of Vitality was fleeting.

The eyeball on the Bone Staff turned ashen once more. The wrinkles on the Empress’s face, which had just smoothed out, quickly deepened again. Only a single drop of Golden Sand remaining at the corner of her mouth proved that this desperate plunder—an act akin to drinking poison to quench one’s thirst—had ever occurred.

Her expression held a sickly flush, and her face showed signs of exhaustion.

"Did you think I was unaware? The Taoist Sect wants to use the Imperial Examination to probe Jade Capital. And those Taoist quacks from Jian Nan Dao, those bald-headed fools from Mituo Temple, and all the other Sects..."

Her words came to an abrupt halt.

The sound of hurried footsteps suddenly came from outside the hall. A Golden Armor Guard stumbled in, his helmet nowhere to be seen.

"Report! An abnormality in the Earth Veins has been discovered in the southeast corner of the Imperial Examination Hall! It’s suspected that someone has tampered with them..."

Six of the great Dragon Veins converge beneath Jade Capital City, each corresponding to one of the Great Zhou’s Six Dao. Tampering with them was absolutely forbidden; they were the foundation of the Great Zhou and the cornerstone of her ability to rule the world once more.

The Empress suddenly burst into laughter, the sound interspersed with the bloodcurdling noise of her coughing up blood.

Her gaunt face flickered in and out of the shadows of Jinluan Hall, like a skeleton draped in human skin. "Excellent... so everyone has come to join the party..."

She rose unsteadily to her feet. The eyeball gem on her Bone Staff suddenly flew wide open. Reflected in its pupil was the sky above the Imperial Examination Hall, where two streams of cyan and black qi were twisting into a vortex.

"Issue a decree."

The Empress’s voice suddenly became exceptionally clear, each word like an inscription carved into bronze. "In one month, I will personally attend the Grand Martial Assembly."

Her hunched figure looked exceptionally small in the pillar of light cast by the hall’s entrance, but her next words plunged everyone into an icy abyss. "Since they all want to see how I die... then let them have a good look."

***

「On the road to Yu Jing State, within Hedong State of Jade Capital Dao.」

The official road through Hedong State was bathed in the warm, golden light of a late spring morning. Wild apricot blossoms flourished by the roadside, their pink and white petals rustling down onto the Bluestone Slabs, only to be crushed into fragrant dust by carriage wheels.

A merchant caravan flying a "Jiangnan Silk" banner moved slowly forward. Its twenty black-canopied carriages were covered with ordinary burlap, but concealed a hidden layer of Profound Iron within their walls.

This was a disguised convoy, meticulously designed by the Taoist Sect. Although its passengers were experts capable of traveling much faster, the purpose of their journey was not to rush to their destination.

Inside the third carriage, Xu Yunfan sat cross-legged, his body wreathed in ten streams of Powerful Qi, each a different color.

He had just finished refining these colorful streams of Powerful Qi, a feat that marked his true initiation into the Ten Extremes Martial Arts.

This Powerful Qi darted through his internal organs like roaming dragons, each stream containing a Martial Arts Qi with completely different properties.

Within his lungs, with the Triple Jiao Sword Nurturing Technique as a foundation, the Sword Force condensed by the Empty Clarity Sword Washing Technique transformed into innumerable fine threads, tempering his lungs until they were as sharp and clear as a blade’s edge.

Deep within his heart meridians, the blazing True Flame of the Pure Yang Qi Skill burned fiercely; each heartbeat boomed like the roar of a forge. In his spleen, the Blood Qi formed by the Nine Luminaries Swallowing Qi Technique surged, crushing and purifying all medicinal power it passed. Meanwhile, the Jade Marrow Golden Bone Power from the Yijing Marrow Cleansing Skill acted like a blacksmith’s hammer, striking between his bones and organs and producing the clang of metal on metal.

The most startling change was in his liver meridians. The Dragon and Tiger Qi cultivated from the Profound Daoist Sect’s Dragon and Tiger Pill Skill were tearing at the Buddhist Gang Fiend from Mituo Temple. Every collision shook the carriage so violently that fine cracks appeared on its four walls.

Blood trickled from the corner of Xu Yunfan’s mouth, yet his expression held a trace of joy.

This was precisely the "Ten Extremes Confrontation" Secret Technique taught to him by Dugu Jiu, which used the power of Mutual Generation and Mutual Inhibition between top-tier Cultivation Techniques to form miniature furnaces within his organs.

The goal was to forge the Strength of each Ultimate Skill within his body, then integrate them all for his own use.

’The Ten Extremes Martial Arts is powerful, to be sure, but it requires an exquisite level of control over one’s Strength.’ If not for his Attribute Panel, Xu Yunfan would never have dared to be so reckless as to send these varied streams of Powerful Qi into his internal organs and begin the slow process of tempering them.

"Brother Xu, why does your Powerful Qi look like boiling molten copper?"

Li Haomiao lifted the carriage curtain, letting in a few willow leaves beaded with morning dew. The movement caused the Jade Pendant at his waist to sway slightly.

The seemingly ordinary Mutton Fat Jade Pendant at Li Haomiao’s waist actually concealed a secret. Faintly visible on its surface was the pattern of a five-clawed coiling dragon—the Hidden Dragon Pendant, an item unique to the Great Zhou Royal Family.

This item could only be worn by the Crown Prince. It contained a wisp of a True Dragon’s purple qi and was a symbol of legitimate imperial authority.

As the last surviving Prince of the Great Zhou Royal Family’s bloodline, he had been deliberately pushed to the forefront by the Taoist Sect for this venture. They intended to act under the name of "Fengtian Jingnan," using the legitimate royal line as their banner. This would not only give them a just cause to intervene in the chaos in Jade Capital, but also deter the ambitious Vassal Lords.

Xu Yunfan didn’t answer. Instead, he made a sword-finger gesture and pointed toward one of the falling willow leaves.

The leaf bizarrely split into three in mid-air. The first piece was shredded to dust by Sword Force. The second stagnated, as if trapped in a mire. The third, however, burst into golden flames.

This was a sign of his initial success with the Ten Extremes Martial Arts: a single strike containing a Triple Force Dao, balancing hard and soft, with Yin and Yang coexisting within it.

Li Haomiao was so startled by the display that he jumped.