Xu Peng was confident that he would be able to defend himself against the sword attacks of Xiao Ming. However, unexpectedly he found himself beheaded in the next moment.
He went through a thousand emotions and a million thoughts flashed through his mind as the very next moment, he found himself on an empty, plain surface.
This plain surface stretched endlessly. There was no cage around him. But he still felt like he was chained and imprisoned.
For like an age he sat there, contemplating over the choices he had taken.
Lost in his thoughts, he had lost track of time when suddenly a voice came straight into his head and he woke up from this dream.
Soon he regained his composure and found himself back on the platform, in the banquet, and with his head attached to his body.
The first thing he did was instinctively get into a defensive stance when he remembered that he was in a fight.
However, he suddenly frowned when his opponent, Xiao Ming, didn't come for an attack and was standing at one place, still and unmoving.
Upon a closer look, Xu Peng noticed that Xiao Ming was blankly staring in his direction with a pale look on his face. Xiao Ming's eyes were on him, but he was not 'looking' at him.
Xu Peng was shocked to see what was happening. He had no idea why Xiao Ming was acting like that.
Just then, his eyes fell on the disciples sitting behind Xiao Ming. To his shock, these disciples were also giving a blank stare to him, however, the only difference was that, unlike Xiao Ming who had paleness and fearful expression, they had shock, disbelief, and anger in their eyes.
He turned his head to look around and to his surprise, all the disciples had similar expression of varying degrees,
'What the hell is happening?' And to look for an answer, he turned towards Yuan Shuchun.
Unsurprisingly, she was staring at the Hall's entrance at the opposite end of the Hall. Sensing his gaze, she looked at him and gestured to him not to do anything and stay at his place.
He nodded his head and happily obliged. 'It's best if I don't do anything stupid.'
…
Opposite to him, Xiao Ming stood there motionless as he found it hard to comprehend what had just happened.
At that time he once again heard the shout, but this time, the speaker appeared to be angry.
"Stop it already!"
He turned towards the source of the voice.
Yuan Shuchun was the one who shouted. But she wasn't shouting at him, but rather to someone behind him.
He turned around, and in there, at the entrance of the hall, stood a masked person with his hands behind his back.
All gowned in a similar rob, and with core disciple insignia. Donning a mask, which began from their neck and covered their face up to nose bridge, he stood upright.
There was pin-drop silence in the hall.
Yuan Shuchun took a deep breath and asked out loud, "To use such demonic cultivation technique over junior disciples, I see that the Nine Supremes have lost all their reason and limits."
It was then it dawned on Xiao Ming that he had been in an illusion all this time.
"Haha, Little girl, your tongue gets sharper and sharper every time we meet. I was just testing the spirit perception of our junior disciples."
"Spirit Perception? Who are you to do that? Are you the Sect Leader? Or do you not even care about Sect Rules anymore?"
"Hais, there's no point arguing with you." The disciple at the entrance gave her a nonchalant reply and jumped on the stage.
He looked around, looking at all the disciples present at the scene. His eyes lingered over Ye Tian Yun longer than at others and then staring at Yuan Shuchun, he said, "Junior Sister Yuan, Nine Supremes have come to choose a candidate for the next seat."
Yuan Shuchun was clearly offended by his words. "What do you mean you have come here? Go and organize your own banquets! And next time, don't you dare use that technique in my presence."
Her loud words echoed throughout the hall. By now, almost all the disciples in the hall had come back to their senses.
They stood there in shock as they felt like they had returned back in time and were about to once again witness Xiao Ming beheading Xu Peng.
It was a weird deja vu feeling for them. Like they were reliving each and every moment.
Ye Tian Yun, however, stood in shock when the masked disciples announced their identities.
The Nine Supremes.
In the Gracious Sword Sect, there were hundreds of leagues, some made from clan alliances, a few made by political factions of the sect and then there came the leagues which just existed. No history, no sense, no agenda. They were just there as a league.
Such were the Nine Supremes. This league was also one of the smallest leagues in the whole sect, however, its power and influence were big enough to be acknowledged among the big four leagues alongside World, Jade, and Heavenly.
However, unlike the other three leagues, which had a rich history and powerful backings, the Nine Supremes had nothing. The only thing that they had were very talented members. As the name stated, they only had nine members among them, but any one of them was alone enough to trounce over half of their peak's Inner Court disciples.
Just like their member on the platform, who alone put the best of the new Inner Court disciples and half of the Heavenly League's top members in a dream-like illusion and even made Xu Peng suffer death.
This alone was enough to state how talented and powerful the other members would be.. Especially since each of them was known to possess unique cultivation methods, just like the masked disciple on the stag who cultivated this Illusion technique.