At this moment, within the Meng family mansion.
Sitting in the seat of honor was the head of the Meng family, Meng Canglan. He appeared to be a middle-aged man in his fifties.
With a square face and a short beard, he wore a dark blue brocade robe. His aura was steady, impressively revealing a cultivation base at the early stage of the Body Integration Realm.
At this moment, he wore a perfectly measured smile, though a trace of imperceptible caution flickered in his eyes.
Seated in the primary guest position was a young maiden who appeared to be around sixteen years old.
She wore a goose-yellow fairy dress with exquisite cloud and crane patterns embroidered on the hem. She was beautiful, yet her brows carried the noble and arrogant air of someone born into a major clan.
She was none other than the Fourth Miss of the Su family, Su Wanqing.
Although she only possessed a peak Golden Core cultivation, everyone from the Meng family present, including Patriarch Meng Canglan, treated her with the utmost respect, even showing faint signs of flattery.
The reason was simple: the Su family was a true behemoth in the eastern part of the Southern Continent. With a Mahayana Realm patriarch overseeing the clan, their influence radiated across several commanderies, far beyond what the Meng family, confined to a corner of Hanhai, could compare to.
The Meng family's rapid rise in Hanhai City to become a premier family was inextricably linked to the Su family's support.
Consequently, every four years, the Meng family had to offer a substantial amount of resources as tribute to the Su family to maintain this vassal relationship.
Today, the Fourth Miss of the Su family had come under her clan's orders to collect the tribute, while also gaining experience and familiarizing herself with the interaction process between the two families.
Behind Su Wanqing stood four attendants with restrained auras.
All four were Void Refinement cultivators, guards meticulously trained by the Su family.
Hidden in the shadows of the Meng family mansion was a Body Integration Realm elder from the Su family, silently protecting Su Wanqing's safety.
"Fourth Miss, our Meng family began preparing this tribute early on. They are all spiritual materials prepared exactly according to the Su family's requirements. Here is a portion of it. The rest has already been prepared by my son, who is currently rushing back to the Meng family and will deliver it tomorrow.
In addition, there are three Essence Condensation Pills specifically sought out for you, to help you break through to the Nascent Soul Realm."
Meng Canglan held his wine cup and spoke respectfully to Su Wanqing.
Su Wanqing gave a slight nod, her tone flat.
"Patriarch Meng is very thoughtful."
She looked at the Essence Condensation Pills in front of her, but felt little emotion inside.
Such things were a dime a dozen in the Su family. There was another reason why she was stuck at the peak of the Golden Core Realm.
Going out to gain experience this time was also to see if she could encounter an opportunity to resolve this issue.
Just as the host and guests in the hall were seemingly conversing harmoniously—
"Om..."
A low, magnificent humming sound, seemingly originating from the depths of the void, faintly echoed from far to near.
It was not obvious at first, but soon, the sound surged like a tide, accompanied by an indescribable, heart-palpitating sense of oppression!
The expressions of everyone in the hall, including the hidden Body Integration Realm elder in the corner, simultaneously changed.
"What is happening?"
Meng Canglan stood up abruptly, his divine sense instantly sweeping outside the mansion.
Almost at the same time, the entire sky suddenly darkened.
It wasn't nightfall, but rather some colossal entity blocking out the sunlight.
"Enemy attack?!"
A Meng family elder shouted in alarm.
"Protect the Fourth Miss!"
Two of the Su family's Void Refinement guards instantly flashed in front of Su Wanqing, their spiritual energy surging to form a protective barrier.
Su Wanqing's pretty face paled slightly, but coming from a major family, she forced herself to stay calm and looked up at the sky outside the hall.
A terrifying immortal boat, a thousand zhang long, was silently hovering directly above the Meng family mansion, no more than a hundred zhang from the ground.
Its massive hull covered almost half of the Meng family's core area, casting a shadow as deep as an abyss.
Su Wanqing's pupils shrank sharply.
She had seen the Su family's immortal boat, the carriage of her clan's patriarch. It was three hundred zhang long and already felt incomparably majestic to her.
But compared to the one before her... it was simply a small skiff meeting a giant warship.
"This... whose carriage is this?!"
Meng Canglan's voice carried an uncontrollable tremble.
As a late-stage Soul Formation cultivator, he could better feel the level of power radiating from that immortal boat, which far exceeded his comprehension.
This was absolutely not something Hanhai City, or even any known faction in the eastern part of the Southern Continent, could possess.
"On guard! Highest clan alert!"
Meng Canglan roared sternly, his voice spreading throughout the entire Meng mansion.
In an instant, spiritual lights lit up all over the Meng mansion, formations were activated, and figures flew out from everywhere, nervously looking up at the behemoth above their heads.
But no one dared to act rashly. The oppression brought by the immortal boat was too strong, so strong that it snuffed out any thought of resistance.
Just as the Meng family faced a formidable foe and the Su family members were extremely tense—
A figure leisurely descended from the bottom of the immortal boat.
Without riding an escape light or showing any spiritual energy fluctuations, he drifted down gently like a feather.
The person landed in the empty courtyard in front of the hall, no more than ten zhang away from the main hall.
It was a very young man, looking no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He wore a simple plain white inner shirt, his black hair untied and casually draped over his shoulders.
He stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the magnificent Hanhai Hall before him. His expression was calm, as if he were just visiting an ordinary friend.
The people in the hall, however, did not dare to relax in the slightest.
To be able to step down from such an immortal boat and land so effortlessly from mid-air, this person was absolutely not simple.
Meng Canglan took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the fear in his heart. He stepped forward, walked out the hall door, cupped his hands toward Gu Changyuan, and said:
"I am Meng Canglan, Patriarch of the Meng family. May I ask why Your Excellency has graced our Meng family with your presence?"
His tone was as polite as possible, but it still carried a hint of wariness and questioning.
After all, with such a grand display, arriving uninvited and hovering directly above their mansion, the other party's intentions seemed far from friendly.
Gu Changyuan's gaze swept the surroundings, noticing that many Soul Formation, Void Refinement, and Body Integration Realm cultivators had their eyes fixed on him with vigilance.
It made sense; arriving in person with such a massive spectacle would inevitably warrant caution.
However, with his current abilities, displaying his strength was much more effective than talking.
He did not answer.
He merely took a gentle step forward.
Just a single step.
"Boom—!!!"
A terrifying pressure, as heavy as the sky itself, erupted like a tangible tsunami with Gu Changyuan at its center.
The Meng family cultivators inside and outside the main hall were all ruthlessly pressed to the ground by this pressure. Their knees cracked loudly, their faces flushed red, and they didn't even have the strength to lift their heads.
Meng Canglan felt as if he had been instantly thrown into the bottom of a ten-thousand-fathom sea, the pressure surging from all directions threatening to crush him alive.
His late-stage Body Integration spiritual energy circulated madly, yet it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot; he couldn't hold on for even a single breath.
Inside the hall, Su Wanqing's beautiful face drained of color. Had it not been for the two Void Refinement guards desperately holding up a protective barrier in front of her, she would likely have been instantly knocked unconscious by the pressure.
She also carried several protective magical artifacts given to her by her father, Su Yunhao, which could provide her with the power to protect herself even against a Mahayana Realm cultivator.
Even so, she felt her breathing grow difficult and a sharp pain in her divine soul.
But the most horrified of all was none other than the Su family's Body Integration Realm elder hidden in the shadows—Su Ming.
He had been hiding in the spatial folds all along, his aura completely concealed.
Yet the moment Gu Changyuan took that step and the pressure erupted, he felt as if an invisible giant hand had forcefully dragged him out of his hiding place!
The stable space around him fractured like glass, instantly rendering his prized concealment technique completely useless.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
