In the old temple, Shirong and his two followers were staring at the three statues. The glow from them had dissipated and the blood covering them was also starting to fade away.

Not only were they tired after making all the formations and controlling the runes, they knew that they now had to retreat soon. While they had made effort to make sure that they would not be suspected, Shirong still wanted to be cautious.

But they still had to wait and see if there were any changes to the statues after the process was fully completed. Thus they waited for about five more minutes and saw that everything returned to how it was before.

"It should be fine now, collect the corpses and dispose of them at a right time," Shirong ordered.

Bei Wen nodded and went to collect the corpses of the three men who were controlled and that of the old priest. He stored them in his spatial storage ring. After storing them, he had a slightly displeased expression on his face as his spatial storage ring was now fully filled.

Bei Wen's spatial storage ring was a mid grade one and thus did not have much space. Before storing the corpses it was already half filled and now adding the three corpses had fully filled it. If it were up to him, he would have disposed of the corpses right away, but according to the plan he had to wait for the right time.

Depending on the situation, the corpses could still be used to divert attention and thus they had to keep them. If they disposed of them early on, then it would be a shame.

"Let's go now," Shirong ordered.

The three of them created the tiger masks again on their faces and walked out of the temple. Sometime while making the formations, the tiger masks had dissipated, most likely due to it lacking energy. After making the tiger masks though, Ye Dai and Bei Wen's qi fluctuation became significantly lower. It was evident that the technique used up quite a bit of spirit qi to operate.

They circled around the path they came from just to be cautious and returned to their respective courtyards. Just a minute after Shirong had returned to his courtyard, a knock was heard on his door.

"Young Master Shirong, the clan heads have called in an emergency meeting." Spoke a voice from outside.

"That was fast… seems like they were more worried about this than I expected," Shirong muttered.

He walked to the door and opened it, only to see one of the Juniors of the Lu clan waiting for him there. He had seen the man before and nodded at him.

"Alright, let's go. But what is the reason for the emergency meeting?" Shirong probed.

"Umm, I do not know. The clan head simply instructed me to bring you." The junior answered.

'Hmm, so they want to keep it hidden for the time being.' Shirong thought.

But while following the junior, he realized that they were not heading towards the meeting hall but rather the direction of the main Temple of the three guardians.

"Are we not going to the meeting hall?" Shirong questioned.

"No, Young master. The clan head asked for the meeting to be held at the temple for some reason." The junior spoke.

Shirong did not speak anything and simply nodded.

'That makes sense considering the speed of this response.' He reckoned.

"Why do I feel like something big is going to happen?" Lin Wu said inside the ring.

***

Far beyond the Ming Dao world, there existed a gigantic palace.

Precious stones and metals had been used in its construction, and an auspicious aura could be felt all around it. Even the qi in the area was dense enough to be condensed into clouds that varied in a myriad of shades. There were purple, blue, pink, green and golden clouds in the sky forming a mystical scene.

There were countless precious herbs and flowers everywhere in the lands around the palaces and all of them emanated a thick qi. The fragrance of the Flowers was absolutely tantalizing and if a mortal were to come here, just being in the vicinity of them would push them to the peak of health.

There were spirit beasts flying in the air that had various forms. The beasts would let out cries and growls while traveling through the clouds, enjoying it very much.

Inside this giant palace, there was a long hall. This hall was a throne room and at the end of it was a twelve feet tall golden throne.

A regal looking man was currently sitting on this throne. He himself was over fifteen feet tall and had a long mustache that came all the way down to his chest. He had a blue crown on his head and his hair was tied up in the style of royalty.

He wore azure blue robes and various designs were present on the robes. But the most eye catching thing about him was the power coming from him. Just the qi that he was breathing in and out was dense enough to cause immortal Ascension realm experts to explode.

One could tell that this was no common man, if he was a man at all.

The man was sitting silently on the throne and had his eyes closed in contemplation. The rest of the throne room was empty, yet it did not feel like that. If one looked at it closely, they could see hundreds of ethereal silhouettes sitting on the rest of the seats in the hall.

All of them were emanating qi, but not just any qi, it was immortal qi!

Yet in front of all these figures, the qi from the regal looking man was oppressive. One could not even tell what kind of qi was surrounding the Azure robed man.

A few steps were heard as a nine feet tall man walked into the hall. The man was wearing green robes and had long hair as well. But the attitude he presented was rather servile and could be seen as he kneeled in greeting after reaching the hall.

"My king, an old beacon was activated…"