The absolute, profound silence that blanketed the Ice Heart Pavilion was no longer the tranquil, purifying stillness of a righteous sect immersed in deep meditation. Instead, it was the heavy, suffocating quiet of a conquered territory, a tomb where pride, purity, and centuries of unyielding discipline had been brutally slaughtered and left to rot. Wang Jian had successfully infiltrated the heart of Azure Cloud City, stripped its most pristine cultivators of their dignity, and completely gutted the immense, legendary treasury of the Golden-Scale Auction House without a single alarm being raised to the outside world. He stood in the opulent, dimly lit main hall, his immaculate white scholarly robes belying the absolute, terrifying demonic darkness that saturated his core. He was the undisputed master of this domain, the apex predator who had devoured the region's most coveted prizes.
