265: The flawed jade is the king (Part 4)

Inside the sleeping quarters, the spatial turbulence gradually subsided.

The pitch-black vortex that had swallowed Yu Yun's body rapidly shrank and finally dissipated into nothingness after losing the energy support of the divine jade.

Only a mess of ruins remained, along with the bloody scent and Devilish Qi that had yet to disperse from the air.

"Damn it!"

Yu Tianheng clutched his chest, struggling to stand up from beneath the collapsed wall.

He looked at the empty crib, his eyes filled with resentment and fury.

But soon, this fury was replaced by an even more intense surge of ecstasy.

He could clearly feel a brand-new power, filled with Supreme dao rhyme, producing a wonderful resonance with his innate Saint Eye within his chest.

The Supreme Bone was now his.

"Hahaha... Hahahaha!"

Yu Tianheng could not help but laugh out loud, his laughter triumphant and crazed.

"My dear cousin, thank you for fulfilling my destiny!"

"From this day forth, I, Yu Tianheng, shall be the sole protagonist of this Golden Great Age!"

As for the infant who had been swept away by the spatial turbulence and lost his Supreme Bone, in his eyes, the child was already a dead man.

Just then, hurried footsteps and cries of alarm came from outside the sleeping quarters.

"Quick! There are signs of a struggle over here!"

"It's the Daoist Seed's quarters! Oh no, something's happened!"

The group of guards and stewards who had been lured away finally realized something was wrong and rushed back.

When they pushed open the already shattered doors and saw the ruins before them, smelling the pungent blood and Devilish Qi, everyone's faces turned pale.

They saw Yu Tianheng lying in a pool of blood, his fate unknown.

They also saw the empty crib.

"Where is the Daoist Seed?!"

"The Daoist Seed is gone!"

Cries of panic completely shattered the tranquility of the Yu Family... In the Yu Family's discussion hall, the lights were bright, yet the atmosphere was extremely oppressive.

Every core clansman of the Qingmu Lineage had bloodshot eyes, staring deathly at the Yu Family Patriarch on the main seat.

"Patriarch! You must give us an explanation for this!"

"The Qilin child of my lineage was abducted within the clan, and his life is unknown! This is an absolute disgrace!"

On the other side of the hall, Yu Tianheng lay "at death's door" on a soft couch. His mother, the Lady of the Main Lineage, was wiping the "blood" from the corner of his mouth with a look of heartache.

"An explanation? What explanation do you want?"

An Elder of the Main Lineage snorted coldly and stepped forward.

"Tianheng is also a victim! He kindly went to visit his cousin but was ambushed and heavily injured by unknown thieves! By the time we arrived, the Daoist Seed was already gone!"

"Nonsense!"

An Old Ancestor of the Qingmu Lineage was beyond furious. "Extremely pure Devilish Qi remains within the sleeping quarters! Someone clearly performed a Demonic Technique!"

Just as he finished speaking, the vast pressure of a Venerable shrouded the hall.

Everyone felt their breathing hitch.

Yu Tianheng slowly stood up from the soft couch. He wiped the blood from his mouth, and the look of weakness on his face vanished instantly.

A powerful aura erupted from his body.

The Saint Eye between his brows opened and closed, divine light flowing within it, while a Supreme Bone power throbbed slightly in his chest.

Two distinct yet equally powerful forces fused perfectly within him, emitting a pressure that even made many God King-level Elders present feel alarmed.

"Indeed, I did it."

Yu Tianheng's voice was calm, yet filled with arrogance.

He admitted it.

In front of everyone, he admitted to the evil deed of devouring his younger cousin's Supreme Bone.

"You... you beast!"

The clansmen of the Qingmu Lineage were both shocked and enraged, preparing to strike.

"Stop!"

The Yu Family Patriarch, Yu Tianheng's father, stepped forward and blocked everyone.

He looked at his son; though there was suspicion in his eyes, there was even more ecstasy.

He scanned the room, his voice booming.

"This matter ends here."

"Tianheng possesses the Saint Eye and now has the added support of the Supreme Bone. He is the true future of our Yu Family!"

"As for that Yu Yun... he was just a newborn infant. Without the Supreme Bone, he likely won't survive for long. To sacrifice himself for the future of the Family is his honor!"

These words were shameless to the extreme, yet they spoke the cruelest reality.

The Elders of the Main Lineage and the other two lineages looked at each other, seeing hesitation in one another's eyes.

Indeed.

Between an infant destined to die and a future Supreme with infinite potential who possessed two great divine treasures.

The choice was self-evident.

Ultimately, by the joint decision of the Main Lineage and the other two lineages, the matter was forcibly suppressed.

The Qingmu Lineage received a generous amount of resources as compensation, but they had lost the Family's future and all their dignity.

They became the laughingstock of the entire Yu Family.

It was at this time that bad news arrived.

The pillar of the Qingmu Lineage, that Venerable Old Ancestor, had been hunted by a quasi-Saint level great demon after killing a Sacred Beast descendant in the East Desolate Forbidden Land. Ultimately outnumbered, his fate was unknown.

This news became the final straw that broke the Qingmu Lineage.

Half a month later, Yu Yun's parents—his God King-level father and his wife—returned from abroad.

When they learned the tragic news that their son's bone had been taken and the Old Ancestor's fate was unknown, they were consumed by grief and indignation.

Without the slightest hesitation, the two of them directly attacked the Main Lineage to seek justice for their kin.

However, their resistance seemed laughable before the Main Lineage, which had long been fully prepared.

"Stubborn and incorrigible!"

"Out of consideration for our shared bloodline, we shall spare your lives."

"But while you may escape the death penalty, you cannot escape punishment."

In the end, the two were suppressed beneath a divine mountain in the Yu Family's back mountains, never to rise again.

From then on, the Main Lineage had no more worries... The Eastern Region, a desolate mountain range where few people ventured.

An old man wearing a gray robe and carrying a medicine basket was carefully picking a Spirit Medicine from a cliff face.

His movements were gentle, as if he were handling a rare treasure.

Suddenly, a faint cry of an infant, sounding as if it might cease at any moment, drifted into his ears with the mountain wind.

The old man's brow furrowed slightly.

In such a wild mountain range, where would an infant come from?

He originally didn't want to bother, but the crying seemed to possess a kind of magic, constantly tugging at his mind.

"Fine then."

The old man sighed, put the Spirit Medicine into his basket, and with a flash of his body, followed the sound of the crying.

Soon, he found the source of the crying in a valley torn apart by spatial turbulence.

A male infant wrapped in swaddling clothes lay among a pile of broken rocks, his breath weak, looking as if he would not survive.

The old man only gave a casual glance and prepared to turn and leave.

But in the next moment, he seemed to discover something and stopped in his tracks.

He walked to the infant, knelt down, and extended a withered finger to tap the infant's chest.

"Eh?"

The old man let out a light exclamation of surprise.

His Alchemy Dao was peerless and his medical skills divine; he saw through the infant's condition in a single glance.

"Strange, strange."

"This child's Root and Bone are excellent; he should have been a one-in-ten-thousand cultivation genius, yet his Origin seems to have been forcibly gouged out."

"The bone in his chest also looks as if it were stripped away while he was alive, leaving only a hollow hole of flesh and blood."

"Such cruel methods."

The old man shook his head, showing little sympathy in his eyes.

He had seen many such things in this cultivation world where the weak were prey to the strong.

This child's life force was severed and beyond the help of gods; there was no need for him to meddle.

Just as he stood up and prepared to leave, his gaze inadvertently fell upon a jade pendant hanging around the infant's neck.

The jade pendant was already shattered, leaving only a fragmented corner with a single character carved in ancient seal script.

Yun.

Seeing this character, the old man's body suddenly jolted.

Waves instantly surged in his calm eyes.

A memory sealed for who knows how many tens of thousands of years surged out uncontrollably.

A young man also named 'Yun' had displayed unparalleled talent in the Alchemy Dao.

The old man reached out, trembling, and caressed that fragmented jade pendant.

For a long, long time.

He let out a long sigh, intertwined with reminiscence, sorrow, and a sense of destiny.

"Fine, fine."

"Another 'Yun'..."

"Since fate has allowed this old man to meet you, then it is our karma."

The old man bent down and carefully picked up the infant—who had long since fainted and had only a final wisp of breath left—along with his swaddling clothes.

"From now on, you shall follow me."