Lin Tian crossed the Grand Assembly Plaza’s polished stone. Silence pressed down, thick with hundreds of eyes—awe, fear, and calculation.

He stared ahead at the broad steps where the Sect Master waited. Elder Shen led him, while Xueya and Su Lan anchored his back.

His new Earth Spirit Realm power hummed within, a deep, tectonic river replacing his former stream. It was immense, stable, and exhausted; the strain of the Rift and recent trials ached heavily.

He was ten paces from the steps when the air cracked.

"HALT!"

The voice was a whip of fire and outrage, shredding the respectful quiet. It came from the edge of the plaza, where the Crimson Sun delegation stood clustered like a wound.

Elder Zhu stepped forward, his crimson and gold robes billowing though there was no wind. His face was a mask of controlled fury, but his eyes burned with a grief so profound it had curdled into hate. He pointed a finger, not at the Sect Master, but directly at Lin Tian.

"You! Murderer! Soul-devouring demon!"

The accusation hung in the air, ugly and final.

The Sect Master’s serene expression didn’t change, but a frost seemed to settle around her. "Elder Zhu. You overstep. The matter is concluded."

"Concluded?" Zhu barked. "A monster returns wearing my disciples’ skin. No. That thing used forbidden arts. He didn’t just defeat Zhu Yan; he consumed him. Kael’s spirit was unraveled! Only demonic heresy leaves such a stain."

Murmurs rippled through the Azure Snow disciples. Doubt, now, mixed with the awe. Demonic arts. The ultimate taboo. A cultivator who stole the power or souls of others was a plague to be purged, a justification for any sect to unite and destroy.

Lin Tian stopped walking. He turned slowly to face the elder. He felt Xueya’s spike of cold anger through their bond, a protective fury. Su Lan’s warmth tightened, ready to flare.

Elder Shen moved to interpose herself. "You have no evidence but your own loss, Elder Zhu. Grief clouds your judgment."

"My judgment is clear!" Zhu roared, his aura flaring. A wave of scorching heat rolled out from him, causing the nearby disciples to stumble back. "I demand he submit to a Soul Mirror examination! Let the truth be seen! If he is innocent, he has nothing to fear!"

A Soul Mirror. It would lay his spirit bare, exposing every secret. The System. The bonds. The true nature of his cultivation. It would be a death sentence.

The Sect Master’s voice turned to ice. "You demand nothing within my sect’s gates. Your disciples broke the covenant of the trial. Their fate is of their own making."

"Lies! Cover-ups!" Elder Zhu was beyond diplomacy now, his pride and lineage shattered in that Rift. He took another step forward, his focus laser-locked on Lin Tian. "You hide behind your women and your elders, boy. But I see you. I see the corruption you carry. You are a blight."

Lin Tian looked at the old man. He saw the pain there, real and terrible. He also saw the hypocrisy, the willingness to send disciples to murder but cry foul when they failed.

He felt no rage. Only a cold, clear certainty.

He wants a spectacle? Lin Tian thought. I’ll give him one.

He didn’t step forward. He didn’t flare his aura. He simply... relaxed.

And let the Domain unfold.

It wasn’t an explosion. It was an emergence. The air in the entire Grand Assembly Plaza changed. The sunlight seemed to deepen, the shadows to sharpen. A low, subsonic hum vibrated in the stone underfoot, in the fillings of teeth.

The Chaos-Harmony Field manifested.

Lin Tian’s Domain, a hundred-yard sphere of absolute command, felt to others like a heavy, suffocating weight. Elder Zhu’s scorching aura vanished, instantly smothered by the field’s placid, utterly neutral energy.

Disciples gasped, knees buckling. Elders stiffened, their own domains instinctively contracting in self-defense. The Sect Master’s eyes widened a fraction.

Elder Zhu staggered, his fiery aura compressing to a flicker around his body. "What... what is this?!"

"You asked for truth," Lin Tian said. His voice carried, calm and flat, across the silent field. It wasn’t loud, but in the absolute quiet, it was the only sound. "You speak of evidence. You will have it."

System. Access recorded sensory data from the Progenitor Rift. From first contact with Crimson Sun and Void Whisper disciples. Project it.

Acknowledged. Tier 2 Function: Domain-Assisted Memory Projection. Initializing.

Lin Tian raised his hand, not in attack, but in presentation. Above the open space between him and the rival elders, the air shimmered. Light and shadow coalesced, forming a three-dimensional, moving image so clear it was like a window into the past.

There was no sound. None was needed.

The images played out, vivid and undeniable.

The temple courtyard on the floating island. Lin Tian landing, alone. Then, Zhu Yan, the Crimson Sun woman, the two Void Whisper disciples emerging from concealment. Their faces were clear, their expressions grim and intent.

The scene showed Zhu Yan speaking, his lips moving. Then the coordinated attack—the fire wave, the shadow blades, the mental assault, all launching at Lin Tian at once. An ambush. A blatant, four-against-one betrayal of the trial’s rules.

The vision shifted, tracking Lin Tian’s Domain as he froze flames and shadows. He crippled the infiltrators, while Xueya pierced the enemy and Su Lan unleashed a fiery counter. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Then it showed Zhu Yan, his face twisted in panic, fumbling for an escape talisman. The bright flash as he vanished, abandoning his allies to their fate.

The projection moved to the obsidian canyon. It showed the Siphoning Cage, Lu Cang trapped inside, his qi visibly streaming out to feed the five disciples surrounding him. It showed their faces—Crimson Sun and Void Whisper again. It showed them questioning Lu Cang, their gestures threatening.

It showed Lin Tian dropping into the canyon, the Domain erupting to shatter the cage. It showed the brief, brutal fight that followed, ending with the rivals disarmed and surrendering.

Finally, the corridor: Kael ambushed Xueya, but Lin Tian swapped places. Lin Tian countered not with soul consumption, but with raw Ice Flame Qi, shattering Kael’s defenses through pure, overwhelming external annihilation.

The projection faded. The silent, moving pictures had taken less than a minute.

The plaza was utterly, profoundly silent. The Chaos-Harmony Field still held, making the silence feel dense, inescapable.

Lin Tian lowered his hand. He looked at Elder Zhu, whose face had gone from furious red to a sickly gray. He looked at Elder Ming, whose void-cold composure had finally cracked, revealing a sliver of horrified recognition.

"That," Lin Tian said, the word dropping into the quiet like a stone, "is the truth. Your disciples were not hunters. They were ambushers. They were jailers. They were assassins. They broke faith first. They paid the price."

He took a single step forward. The Domain pulsed with him, the weight increasing just a notch. Elder Zhu actually took a half-step back, his foot scraping on stone.

"You speak of demonic arts," Lin Tian continued, his voice still calm. "You saw no soul-devouring. You saw defense. You saw consequence. You sent wolves to slaughter a lamb, Elder Zhu. You did not know the lamb had grown teeth."

Lin Tian surveyed the delegations. "Evidence is presented. Cling to your lies and face defeat, or accept your disciples’ failures and shame. You have a choice: suffer the consequences, or leave now."

The ultimatum hung in the air. It wasn’t a young disciple talking. It was an Earth Spirit Realm expert, standing in a Domain of his own making, who had just proven he could wield memories as weapons. He had publicly dissected their grievance and found it rotten at the core.

The Sect Master did not speak. She watched, her face unreadable. This was Lin Tian’s fight now. He had moved beyond needing her protection.

Elder Zhu trembled, his moral standing ruined. Accusations shattered, he dared not strike. This monstrous boy radiated an ancient, unyielding presence, leaving Zhu with only the chilling certainty of his own total defeat.

He looked at Elder Ming. The Void Whisper elder gave a minute, almost imperceptible shake of her head. No. Not here.

The fight drained from Elder Zhu, leaving only a hollow, bitter shell. He straightened his robes, a futile gesture of dignity. "The Azure Snow Sword Sect," he said, the words ash in his mouth, "harbors a dangerous power. One that will bring storm upon you all. Remember this day."

It was a retreat. A pathetic, face-saving mutter.

He turned sharply, his robes snapping. "Crimson Sun! We depart!"

His disciples scrambled to follow, their earlier arrogance replaced by pallid fear. They couldn’t get out of the oppressive Domain fast enough.

Elder Ming said nothing at all. She simply turned, her sect melting into the shadows at the plaza’s edge, disappearing as if they had never been there.

The Chaos-Harmony Field dissipated. Lin Tian let it go, the immense energy settling back into his core. The normal sounds of the world rushed back in—the wind, the distant cry of glacial birds, the collective exhale of a thousand disciples.

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t shocked or fearful. It was awed. It was the silence given to a mountain that has just revealed it can walk.

Lin Tian turned back to the steps. To the Sect Master.

She was looking at him not as a promising disciple, or a troublesome variable, or even a sect treasure.

She was looking at him as a peer. A force of nature that had just redrawn the borders of their world.

"Well," she said, the single word dry and heavy with meaning. "It seems the explanations are already concluded. Come, Lin Tian. We have much to discuss. Alone."

She glanced at Xueya and Su Lan, a silent dismissal. They hesitated, looking to Lin Tian.

He gave them a small, tired nod. It’s okay.

As he climbed the steps to meet the most powerful person in the Azure Snow Sect, he felt the eyes on him again. But the calculation was gone. The jealousy was buried under fear. The doubt had been vaporized.

They didn’t see the crippled young master, or the lucky boy with powerful women. They didn’t even see the rising genius.

They saw the man who had faced down two great sect elders with a word and a thought, and made them retreat.

They saw power that answered to no one.

And Lin Tian, walking into the shadow of the pavilion, knew one thing for certain.

No one would ever try to bully him again.

End of Chapter 150