With every step forward Ye Rong took, she shook the hearts of the Bai clansmen. It didn’t matter whether it was the two patriarchs or the ordinary clansmen; all of them knew what “the Star Altar” and “the Lord of Seven Stars” represented.
The Lord of Seven Stars was the master of the starry sky. She ruled every star in the sky save for the Emperor, Auxiliary, and Fated Stars. The remainder, countless celestial bodies, were all hers.
When a king was angry, rivers of blood flooded the earth.
When the Lord of Seven Stars was angry, the Milky Way itself trembled.
The Bai clansmen held their breaths. They’d all heard Ye Rong’s cold snort, and the threat she made before going to check on Ye Zichen.
Bai Mingli and Bai Jinsheng clenched their fists, but then, Bai Haoyu suddenly appeared before Ye Rong.
“Scram.” Without any extraneous movements, Ye Rong waved her arm, and the Milky Way formed overhead. Radiant starlight descended from the sky, filling the Milky Way and crashing down onto Bai Haoyu, sending him flying back.
Bai Haoyu felt a sweetness at the back of his throat, and fresh blood sprayed out right through his tightly clenched teeth.
Everyone who saw this was stunned. No one had ever doubted the Lord of Seven Stars' strength, but forcing Bao Haoyu back with a wave of her hand?
Was this the imperial sovereign level?
After sending him flying, Ye Rong paid Bai Haoyu no further heed. With every step, the starlight beneath her feet formed into lotuses and hovered in the skies. In just a few breaths of time, she reached Xiao Yumei and saw the one-eyed, missing-limbed Ye Zichen.
Ye Rong visibly stiffened, and a wave of murderous intent flashed by.
Ye Rong still had an impression of Xiao Yumei. Her daughter-in-law from the Modern Realm had once visited Ye Zichen at his home. Both her manner of speech and her personality had pleased Ye Rong.
When she saw Ye Rong, Xiao Yumei was stunned too.
After arriving in the God Realm, she’d naturally heard the name “the Lord of Seven Stars,” but she hadn’t realized she was Ye Zichen’s mother.
“Entrust him to my care.”
Xiao Yumei didn’t doubt Ye Rong. She used her divine power to pass Ye Zichen over to his mother with the utmost care.
Ye Rong reached directly through space and picked him up. She held him aloft in the air, and in the blink of an eye, her eyes lit up with starlight. It was as if she’d stirred up all the starlight of the nine heavens, and their radiant glow had condensed into a single river of stars. The intense glow bore right into Ye Zichen’s forehead.
Gradually, starlight wrapped around him, enshrouding him completely in its radiance.
The other star lords of the Star Altar watched on enviously. The Lord of Seven Stars, Master of the Big Dipper, was personally infusing Ye Zichen’s body with starlight. This was a luxury even lords of four stars could only dream of. But then, they knew that this youth was Ye Rong’s son. They could envy him, but it was only natural that he’d get special treatment.
“What is she doing?” asked Zhao Qianhe.
“You know quite a bit, it seems,” said Xue Yang.
Bi’an could only shake his head and grimace. He’d always clung obsessively to the hope he might one day win the Emperor Star’s favor, so he’d researched the Emperor, Auxiliary, and Fated Stars intensively. He had a deep understanding of the entire star system.
He’d researched it all, from how to contact the stars, to how starlight entered the body and its various functions.
However, despite his research, he lacked the necessary fate. All of his efforts were in vain.
Ye Zichen stood before Ye Zichen for around one hundred breaths of time. Even after her hands left Ye Zichen’s forehead, his connection to the Milky Way and its starlight remained intact. The power of the starry sky continued pouring into his body.
Ye Rong glanced meaningfully at Xiao Yumei, then turned to look at Bai Mingli.
Her gaze was calm and indifferent, and yet, she seemed to be looking right through him. “Do you remember what I said earlier?”
“I’m the one who hurt him,” Bai Haoyu shouted, his gaze solemn. “A life for a life. If you’re angry, take it out on me, but leave my family out of it.”
“Little Yu!” The patriarchs’ pupils constricted, but afterward, they said nothing.
“I didn’t ask who did it, now did I?” asked Ye Rong.
“But it really was me. I’m the one who ruined his eye and severed his arm,” said Bai Haoyu without a trace of fear.
“But that’s not important to me.” Ye Rong chuckled, and suddenly, seven stars lit up the sky. Shockingly, they formed the shape of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. ‘You people hurt him. It doesn’t matter which of you inflicted which specific wound. It was someone from your clan, so…. I’ll just have to obliterate the Bai Family.”
“I’ll expel myself from the clan….”
“Too late!” Ye Rong gave him no chance at all. She spread her arms and looked up at the constellation overhead. “Accept the sanction of seven stars: Seven Stars Sword Rain!”
Overhead, seven formations appeared around the seven stars of the Big Dipper, and the starlight intensified. In the blink of an eye, swords of pure starlight fell from the heavens like rain.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Beneath the rain of celestial swords, the Bai clansmen raised their weapons in an attempt to defend themselves, but they nevertheless fell, one after the other. Bai Mingli and Bai Jinsheng’s eyes reddened.
The rain of swords was like a death god’s scythe, reaping their clansmens’ lives like a farmer harvests wheat. A bloody mist rose into the air, and the falling swords flattened practically the entire family estate.
The sword rain was a wide-range attack. With each second that passed, the clan’s population plummeted. In just a few breaths of time, the Bai Family’s casualties far exceeded what they’d lost facing Ye Zichen, the yao servants, and the Divine Generals of the Profound Pagoda.
“Lord of Seven Stars!” The Bai Family Patriarchs roared in anger.
“This is what you deserve!” Ye Rong’s gaze didn’t contain so much as the slightest ripple.
“Spatial shift!”
At that moment, the skies above the Bai Family changed, as if they’d been replaced. When the rain of swords passed a certain point, the blades disappeared suddenly. Before long, they saw the vanished blades reappear and land hundreds of meters away, out of range.
Xuan Ji and the others glanced over and saw the Divine Arbiter and God Emperor Zhou Wu rushing toward them.
“Your Majesty, the God Emperor.” The Bai Family patriarchs and surviving ordinary clansmen gathered around him.
When Bai Mingli reached the God Emperor, he knelt then and there, right in the air. “Please, Your Majesty, avenge our losses.”
As far as the eye could see, Spirit City was stained red with blood, and the Bai Family ancestral home was now nothing but a mountain of corpses.
Zhou Wu glanced at Ye Rong, then spread his divine sense out in a circle.
“Chao Feng isn't here?” Zhou Wu muttered to himself, then looked at the Bai Family patriarchs lying on the ground. Finally, he turned to Ye Rong and said, “Lord of Seven Stars, can you give me face and spare the Bai Family on my behalf?”
Ye Rong answered without the slightest hesitation, “I can’t!”
