Now this was a problem.

“No, it shouldn’t be…” After looking around, the Prince of Yan froze, muttering, “Where is the Celestial Demon? Where is the Celestial Demon?”

He suddenly turned toward Feng Miaojun, his tiger-like eyes wide open, gleaming with terrifying blood-red light. “Where is the Celestial Demon? WHERE IS IT!”

Anyone else would have been frightened half to death by such a glare.

“I should be asking you that.” Feng Miaojun shrugged. “You’re the one who’s spent a lifetime researching the Celestial Demon’s whereabouts, not me.” This eerily empty place made her momentarily lose interest in dealing with the Prince of Yan.

The Prince of Yan moved quickly through the room.

The stone chamber was about the size of a basketball court. In the blink of an eye, he had circled it more than ten times, searching for mechanisms or weak spots in the stone walls.

However, he found nothing.

Feng Miaojun drew out her Star Sky Awl and struck the stone wall. With a “ding” sound, sparks scattered, but the wall remained completely undamaged.

Well, truly hard. This result didn’t surprise her; a place capable of imprisoning the Celestial Demon must have extraordinary properties.

“The Celestial Demon must be imprisoned here!” the Prince of Yan said fiercely. “Otherwise, why build this stone chamber? Why forge the Dragon Phoenix Staff? Why…” At this point, a surge of anger welled up, nearly bursting his chest.

The temple’s builders had gone to such great lengths to forge a Dragon Phoenix Staff weighing tens of thousands of jin, designed an ingenious carved stone platform, and even carefully calculated the glazed window at the temple’s dome to ensure the moonlight shone down at precisely the right position…

Could all of this have been a prank, a wasted effort? He couldn’t believe it!

Feng Miaojun’s first words struck his vulnerable point: “Then produce one for me to see.” Seeing the Prince of Yan’s gaze pierce toward her like a blade, she spread her hands. “Besides me, that is.” At least the Prince of Yan had always stubbornly regarded her as a Celestial Demon.

The Prince of Yan stared at her fiercely, like a drowning man clutching at the last straw. “You did this deliberately!”

WTF? Feng Miaojun just wanted to hold her head in her hands.

“Every step, I followed exactly according to your previous instructions!” the Prince of Yan growled. “You tricked me into bringing you here! Tell me, where are they?!”

He couldn’t accept it!

He had spent most of his life accomplishing this task, even plunging the northern and southern continents into bloody chaos, and the result was all for nothing.

No, he refused to accept this outcome!

He gripped his sword hilt and advanced step by step toward Feng Miaojun, like a hungry wolf.

“How would I know?” Feng Miaojun wasn’t afraid of him but didn’t want to fight to the death under these circumstances. “Calm down! Shouldn’t we be thinking about how to get out of here?”

The Prince of Yan completely ignored her. He had gone to great lengths to find the Dream City, thinking only of how to find the Celestial Demon and fulfill his wish. As for returning, he hadn’t yet given it much thought.

So she brought up a topic he cared about. Feng Miaojun waved her hand. “I don’t know what happened here, but this stone chamber hasn’t had any soul vibrations for a very, very long time.”

A muscle twitched on the Prince of Yan’s face.

Where there is existence, there must be traces. If the Celestial Demon had resided in this stone chamber, given Feng Miaojun’s sensitivity to souls, she would have detected it—like a canine’s extraordinary control over scents.

Feng Miaojun immediately added, “But I believe the Celestial Demon was indeed originally sealed here.”

The stone chamber, the Dragon Phoenix Staff, the Dream City, the never-before-seen Celestial Demon… No wonder the Prince of Yan firmly believed this was the perfect place to hide and seal the Celestial Demon.

Otherwise, why would the Main Hall of the Divine Temple carve out such a large empty stone chamber? During Emperor Haoli’s era, human reverence for the divine reached unprecedented heights. This stone chamber was built right under the deity’s feet, indicating that people at that time firmly believed that only the omnipotent deity could suppress whatever was inside.

Combining the era of the temple’s construction with historical facts, Feng Miaojun had reason to believe that what had been sealed here was, with ninety-nine percent certainty, the Celestial Demon!

Only the Celestial Demon, which had defeated both humans and demon races, would deserve such fear from the people of New Xia.

Her words were firm, her voice carrying a unique resonance, extremely convincing. The Prince of Yan immediately stopped, even his anger somewhat subsiding.

He was a formidable figure among men, and it was only the rush of blood to his head that had made him lose his composure. Now calming down, his rationality fully returned. “And now?”

“They must have left long ago.” Feng Miaojun’s eyes flickered with faint light in the darkness, appearing demonic yet beautiful even to the Prince of Yan. “Perhaps they found another way out.”

The Prince of Yan was silent for a moment before saying, “But they haven’t returned to the human world.”

Otherwise, how could the human realm have remained peaceful for so many years?

He pointed to the farthest wall. “That mark, you’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”

When they first entered, the chamber had been completely dark. Only now did a mark slowly illuminate on the wall, about the size of a carriage wheel, emitting a faint, dim green light in the sealed chamber.

Feng Miaojun gave an “Mmm” of agreement. “I saw it when I first came to Yingshui City.”

The first time she brought people to Yingshui City and opened the stone platform, she had seen this mark. At that time, it was engraved in the center of the innermost wall of the stone chamber, identified by Yu Haizhen as the divine mark, sharing the same origin as the turtle in her dantian. Of course, back then it hadn’t glowed.

Mentioning this, her gaze shifted slightly. “You’ve studied it too, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” The Prince of Yan stared at it intently. “This is the seal that trapped the Celestial Demon.”

Feng Miaojun suddenly clenched her fist. Even though she and Yun Ya had made progress in their research on the mark over the years and had determined its function, hearing the Prince of Yan confirm it still made her heart tighten. “Are you certain?”

The Prince of Yan glanced back at her, his expression grim. “The Celestial Demon that escaped from here years ago told me personally. Do you think I dare to be uncertain?”

That’s right, he had made a deal with the Celestial Demon in his youth. That being had escaped from the seal three hundred years ago and should understand this mark better than anyone else in the world.

Feng Miaojun walked over and pressed her hand against the wall, pushing hard several times.

The stone wall didn’t budge at all.

Looking at the stone chamber again, it was indeed tightly sealed, without the slightest gap.

She knocked repeatedly on the seal, but couldn’t find any flaws.

“It’s useless.” The Prince of Yan casually struck the wall with his blade. “This mark maintains its power by absorbing the divine soul energy within the stone chamber. The more souls there are and the better their quality, the stronger its effect becomes; conversely, it weakens. This was Emperor Haoli’s method of using the seal to control the Celestial Demon. The longer we stay here, the weaker our divine souls will become.”

Even without his explanation, Feng Miaojun could feel her strength gradually draining away. They had entered the dream with their divine souls, so naturally, the mark was absorbing their soul energy. However, the stone chamber had been empty for who knows how long, and the mark hadn’t been working until they entered, truly energy-efficient.

Feng Miaojun said softly, “What a calculated plan. The Haoli Empire couldn’t destroy the Celestial Demon, but after they stayed here for several hundred years, their power would be slowly drained by the mark. If they couldn’t find a way to escape, their ultimate fate would be annihilation.”