Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

The Regal-looking man spared the servant no glance and kept his silence.

"And why would you bring an issue like this to the king?" One of the illusory figures sitting in the hall questioned.

With his question, a might spread in the hall and put pressure on the servant. But even then the servant was unfazed and kept his posture.

"My king, the old beacon was incomplete after the activation." The servant added.

Finally, some sense of response could be seen in the king's posture. He still didn't open his eyes, neither did his lips move, but a voice was heard in the hall. The voice was powerful, and it was as if it spoke to their souls themselves.

"An incomplete beacon? Were the avatars summoned?" The king questioned.

"They were indeed, but it was for an invokement ceremony." The servant answered.

"An invokement ceremony?" The king asked and opened his eyes.

"Yes my king, I checked ten times and it was indeed that." The servant hurriedly confirmed.

"Shouldn't it be the turn for the vermilion bird clan this time? Why were we asked?" The king questioned, feeling a bit confused.

"My king, for some reason this beacon… does not have the relic of the vermilion bird clan." The servant answered.

"What? How?" This time it was one of the illusory figures that asked.

"What junior was assigned to that beacon?" Another one of the illusory figures questioned.

The servant seemed a bit hesitant to speak after hearing the questions, but he still brought forth courage and spilled it.

"It… it wasn't one of the Juniors of our clan, my lords." The servant answered.

"Then who was it?" The king questioned this time with furrowed brows.

"It was… one of my great grand descendent's from the twenty second branch." The servant spoke in an embarrassed tone.

"What! So it's not someone with the true bloodline and not even a servant? A mere descendant beast!" shouted one of the illusory figures that had questioned the servant.

"Ye-yes, my lords." The servant confirmed.

"Why are we even discussing this? What kind of a backward world was that beacon assigned to? If it's one of the descendant beasts then it should be a mortal world right?" The king replied.

"Yes, my king. The reason I believed this to be worth your time was because while the beacon was activated for the invokement ceremony, someone or something suppressed it breaking the connection. If it were a true beacon that was handled by one of the disciples, then this would have been impossible. 

But since this lowly servant's worthless descendants were involved, I beg for forgiveness. Another thing that bothers me is that the beacon is incomplete, it is missing the vermilion bird clan's avatar. I do not know how something like this happened." The servant explained.

The hall went silent after this, and no one dared to disturb the king while he was thinking. Even if they were given ten thousand guts, they would still not attempt something like this. Their king had reached a level which they had no idea of. All they could do was look up to him.

It was as if the time itself had slowed down in the hall and the silence had still the minds of the people. The servant was still kneeling on the ground even after ten hours had passed by.

"What is the name of this world?" The king finally asked after thinking for a long while.

"According to the records, this was originally a nameless world till a few millenniums ago, but after the first few immortals ascended from that world it was known as the Ming Dao world. Not that unique for a mortal world. I cross checked the other worlds that have the same names and only found this one to be assigned to my branch.

The beacon in the world had fully been activated only once, and that was during the inception ceremony. After the awakening of the avatars, and the linking of celestial energy, it was never awakened. There were some blessing ceremonies conducted and invokement ceremonies that were done, but none of them were directed to us.

But suddenly this has happened." The Servant explained in detail.

The king went silent for a few hours again, and the servant did not move either.

Perhaps if this was the court of the mortal world, a scene like this would have already created a huge uproar. But for a celestial world like this, a scene like this was nothing. For the people living here, time was the one thing they had the most.

"Go ahead then. Since it has been assigned to your descendant, investigate it as you see fit. If the beacon is found to be broken, send another one." The king spoke.

"Thank you for your guidance, my king." The servant replied with great respect.

"You are dismissed." The king added.

The servant stood up and moved out of the hall without facing away from the king. Showing one's back to the king was doing great disrespect to the king. Once the servant was gone, the king looked towards one of the illusory figures that were sitting to his right.

"Ao Dian Mo, inform the vermilion bird clan about this as well. Ask them to check on their end." The king ordered.

"As you command, my lord." The man named Ao Dian Mo spoke.

Outside the palace, the servant stepped up into the sky and turned into a streak of light. It was as if it passed through countless kilometers before arriving in a sea of stars. There, the light changed and turned into an Azure dragon that was ten kilometers long.

~ROAR~

An earth shattering roar was heard as the azure dragon swam in the sea of stars disappearing into the darkness.

***

Back at the Deer Wood city, the people were a bit startled by the events of today but were still relatively calm.

Shirong was walking towards the main temple of the three guardians and had no idea that his little act of stopping the ceremony had set into motion a grand chain of events. 

A few minutes later, Shirong entered the main temple and saw all of the people standing there. There were the clan heads and also the other people they had recruited for the ceremony. Shirong's gaze wandered around the hall and spotted the three dead bodies.

A wide berth was given to the dead bodies, and it was as if the people were afraid of gaining bad luck if they were near the dead bodies. Shirong's eyes flickered for a moment and the calm look returned again. The people were facing away from him and had not seen his face.

Shirong's face twitched for a moment before an expression of great worry replaced the calm look.

"And there we go, Drama queen mode on!" Lin Wu commented while pulling out his imaginary bag of popcorn.

"What happened here Clan heads?" Shirong spoke with a troubled tone that concealed a hint of concern.

The people trained around to face him and a lot of changes were seen on their faces. Some were of regret, some of fear, and some of indifference.

~Sigh~ 

"We should have listened to your suggestion, Young master Shirong. We really had a misfortune as you had stated so before." Clan head Lu spoke answered with a crestfallen expression.

Shirong looked at the dead bodies with a sad look and nodded at the clan head Lu's words.

"No clan head Lu, this was simply something out of our control. All I said back then was that this could be possible, even I was not a hundred percent sure about it." Shirong replied.

"Still, perhaps we should have consulted about it more before attempting this. A week was too short, perhaps." Clan head Lu spoke.

"I admit the error in my research as well fell clan heads." Clan head Mu added.

Clan head Mu was the head of one of the top three clans and was neutral in most of the matters. Him admitting a mistake like this was a great thing, and the smaller clans were surprised. They knew that this was a collective decision and no one would blame clan head Mu even if something worse had happened.

'This is what you get when you do not listen to me.' Shirong thought in his mind.

A week ago, the clans had collectively decided to conduct the ceremony and for that, they needed a lot more core condensation realm experts. Shirong of course did not want them to do this and showed his disagreement. He posed that there could be dangerous effects and that the ceremony was most likely not correct.

The clans were willing to listen to his words but still chose to conduct the ceremony.

To make sure that this failed, Shirong had set up the entire thing and such was the result. But it was this very thing that had perhaps created an even bigger trouble for not only Shirong, but the entirety of the Ming Dao world.