The Grand Hall of the Martial Alliance was a tomb. A chilling silence had fallen, thick with the scent of fear and ozone. Grandmaster Wei, a legend for a hundred years, lay broken on the floor, his dantian shattered, his meridians turned to dust. He was now less than a mortal, a hollow shell. No one dared to move. No one dared to breathe. The assembled sect masters and grandmasters, the titans of Jianghu, remained on their knees. They did not look at the broken Wei. Their eyes were fixed on the man seated on the high throne, the man they had mocked just an hour ago. Lu Feng. The Dragon Sovereign. He held a teacup with casual grace, his expression one of utter boredom. He hadn't even broken a sweat. To him, crippling a Grandmaster was as simple as swatting a fly. Bai Li, the War Goddess, stood beside him, a statue of deadly beauty. Her hand rested on the hilt of her divine sword, her gaze sweeping across the kneeling crowd with cold contempt. These fools had dared to question her Lord. They were lucky to be alive. Lu Feng took a slow sip of his tea. The silence stretched. "The Dark Alliance rises," he said, his voice quiet yet echoing in every corner of the hall. "They seek the Abyssal Seal. You will all prepare your sects. Anyone found colluding with them..." He gestured with his chin toward Wei's crumpled form. "...will share his fate. Understood?" A wave of terrified murmurs. "Yes, Sovereign!" "We obey the Dragon Lord's command!" Lu Feng was about to dismiss them when a commotion erupted at the entrance. "Make way! Make way for the Phoenix Prince, Young Master Xiao Tian!" The heavy doors were thrown open. A young man strode in, radiating an aura of supreme confidence. He was tall, impossibly handsome, and dressed in magnificent golden robes embroidered with a fiery phoenix. His eyes scanned the hall with arrogance, and two powerful, white-bearded elders flanked him like unmovable mountains. He saw the kneeling masters and sneered, clearly misinterpreting the situation. Then, his eyes found Xue Yao, standing pale and shaken near the front. A possessive smile touched his lips. He ignored everyone else, including the man on the throne, and walked directly toward her. Madam Su, who had been hiding in the back, saw her chance. She scurried forward, her face plastered with a fawning smile. "Young Master Xiao! What a surprise! We are so honored by your presence!" Xiao Tian waved her away like a gnat. He stopped before Xue Yao, his voice smooth as silk. "Yao'er. I heard the good news. You finally threw out that piece of trash you married. I came as soon as my father told me." His gaze then drifted over to Lu Feng, still sitting calmly on the throne. A look of pure disgust crossed Xiao Tian's perfect features. "So, that's him? The legendary waste of space? The Su family's live-in dog?" He chuckled, a sound full of ridicule. He pulled a heavy, jingling pouch from his sleeve and tossed it onto the floor in front of the throne. It landed with a loud clatter of gold taels. "Here, worm," Xiao Tian sneered, his voice booming through the hall. "Take this. It's more money than your worthless life will ever see. Disappear. Crawl back to whatever gutter you slithered out of. A goddess like Xue Yao is not for an insect like you to even look at." The kneeling masters gasped in horror. Was this man insane? Did he not see the lingering killing intent that made their very souls tremble? Xue Yao's face went white. A year ago, she might have been thrilled by this display. Now, a cold dread filled her heart. "Young Master Xiao, don't!" she whispered, but it was too late. Lu Feng did not react. He did not even look at the gold. He slowly raised his teacup, took another sip, and set it down with a soft, deliberate *click*. The sound was like a thunderclap in the oppressive silence. Xiao Tian's face darkened with rage at being so thoroughly ignored. "Are you deaf as well as useless? I am Xiao Tian, the heir of the Phoenix Court! My lineage is as noble as the Dragon Order of old! You will show me respect!" With a roar, he unleashed his true essence. A powerful, golden Inner Qi erupted from him, taking the form of a majestic phoenix. It blazed with heat, a pressure that made many of the kneeling masters groan. The golden aura shot directly at Lu Feng, intending to crush him with raw spiritual pressure. But it never reached him. A single foot from Lu Feng's robes, the brilliant golden phoenix vanished. It didn't explode. It didn't fade. It simply ceased to exist, erased from reality like a line drawn in sand washed away by the tide. Lu Feng remained seated, unmoved. His fingers tapped once on the armrest of the throne. Xiao Tian stared, his jaw slack. His ultimate technique... gone? How? It was then that one of his white-bearded guards, a peak-level Grandmaster himself, saw it. His eyes, clouded by arrogance, finally focused on the simple black ring on Lu Feng's finger. A dragon, exquisitely carved, chasing its own tail. The sigil of the one true Sovereign. The Grandmaster's soul left his body. His face contorted in a mask of primal, abject terror. He dropped to the ground, smashing his forehead into the hard stone floor with a sickening crack. *THUD*. "DRAGON SOVEREIGN!" he screamed, his voice breaking. "FORGIVE US! MY YOUNG MASTER IS BLIND AND FOOLISH! HE DID NOT KNOW! SPARE US!" The other guard saw his partner's reaction and instantly understood. He too collapsed, kowtowing so hard the floor trembled. "We beg the Sovereign's mercy!" Xiao Tian froze, the blood draining from his face. Dragon Sovereign? The two words, the title from myth, from the deepest legends of Jianghu, hammered into his mind. He looked from his groveling guards to the bored, indifferent man on the throne. The man who had been his romantic rival. The man he had called a worm. In that instant, he understood. The Phoenix Court, a rival to the Dragon Order? What a joke. His entire, proud lineage was nothing but a flickering candle before this blazing sun. His strength, his status, his arrogance—it was all meaningless. His legs buckled. With a strangled gasp, Xiao Tian, the proud Phoenix Prince, collapsed to his knees, his magnificent golden robes spilling into the dust. He trembled, not from an applied force, but from the sheer, crushing weight of his realization. "S-Sovereign..." he stammered, his teeth chattering. "I... I was ignorant... I beg..." Lu Feng finally turned his gaze upon him. There was no anger in his eyes. There was nothing. It was the cold, empty void of a god looking down upon a microbe. "The Phoenix Court," Lu Feng's voice was a dead calm, a whisper that froze the marrow in every bone. "You dare appear before me?" A terrifying silence hung in the air. Lu Feng rose slowly from the throne, his shadow stretching long and dark across the kneeling prince. "Your father sent you to test my patience? Or did he send you to deliver a message for your true masters in the Dark Alliance?" Xiao Tian’s world shattered. He stared up, his face a canvas of pure horror, unable to form a single word. Lu Feng looked down at him, his expression glacial. "You have three days," he commanded, his voice sealing the prince's fate. "Bring me your father's head. Or the name Phoenix Court will be burned from the annals of history forever."

The Heir of the Rival Throne