The poorest member of the Imperial Guard, the Empress begged me to embezzle.

Before the young master of the Li family could finish speaking, Chu Xiu couldn't help but burst out laughing.

On the day of the Chu family's ancestral worship ceremony, they demanded the coffin of their ancestor from others.

It's amazing that Li Yunhao could come up with this idea.

However, while everyone was stunned into silence by Li Yunhao's blunt purpose, Chu Xiu's laughter made him the focus of the entire audience.

Everyone turned their gaze to Chu Xiu, who had sneered, and countless divine senses scanned him, but could not detect even the slightest fluctuation of magical power.

"Boy, are you courting death?"

Li Yunhao stood up abruptly and was about to walk towards Chu Xiu's direction when he suddenly stopped and turned around to find that his hand was being tightly held by his own great protector.

Li Yunhao frowned. "Protector You? What are you doing?"

Protector You shook his head, his gaze fixed on Chu Xiu.

Even he, a cultivator at the peak of the Transcendent Realm, couldn't discern this person's true nature; he seemed like an ordinary mortal without any trace of cultivation...

But where are the mortals in the Heavenly Continent?

Chu Xiu sighed helplessly, put his hands behind his back, took two steps forward, and walked into the hall.

He used the technique of concealing his breath, suppressing his Void Shattering Realm aura to the extreme, and then released a hundred out of the hundreds of thousands of Emperor auras within his body, letting them linger around him.

The moment the imperial aura appeared, the expressions of everyone present, those at or above the Transcendent Realm, changed drastically.

The three True Transcending Realm Perfection Realm experts present—Lin Qingyao, the Supreme Elder of the Lin Family, the Supreme Elder of the Chu Family, and the Great Protector of the Li Family—suddenly stood up, their eyes fixed on Chu Xiu, their expressions unpredictable.

Imperial aura!

A hundred streams of imperial aura!

The Lin family's Supreme Elder Lin Qingyao and the Chu family's Supreme Elder exchanged a glance, both seeing extreme shock and greed in each other's eyes.

Since the death of the previous human emperor of the Southern Continent tens of thousands of years ago, no emperor with imperial aura has appeared in the Southern Continent!

"Young Master Li, the Chu family's ancestral worship ceremony is just around the corner. It's one thing for you to use this opportunity to force Miss Chu into marriage, but you actually have the audacity to ask for the precious treasures belonging to their ancestor?"

"Your skin, Young Master Li, is thicker than everyone else's combined!"

Chu Leisurely strolled over and sat down in full view of everyone, sneering at Li Yunhao.

"What's more, who do you think you are, Li Yunhao, to dare to steal my best friend's—the young master of the Lin family's—woman in public?"

Lin Chongyang, who was watching the show from the side, was stunned. He frowned and carefully tried to make out Chu Xiu's face, but no matter what he did, he couldn't remember who this person was.

Lin Qingyao slightly suppressed the greedy glint in her eyes for Chu Xiuhuang, and glanced at Lin Chongyang beside her.

"Chongyang, when did you... have such a close friend?"

"They actually dared to speak up for you in front of Li Yunhao."

Lin Chongyang was both amused and exasperated: "I don't know either..."

"What am I?" Li Yunhao was taken aback, then burst into laughter. "Why don't you ask them what I am?"

He pointed at the crowd of onlookers, and everyone he pointed at avoided his gaze, not daring to look him in the eye.

Since his birth, no one had ever dared to speak to him like that; even someone as powerful as Protector You dared not be presumptuous in his presence.

Simply because he comes from the Li clan of the Southern Lands!

"Protector You, kill him!"

Li Yunhao's face was contorted with rage as he turned and roared at his own great protector.

Protector You frowned. Although he did not want to make a move against the young man who had suddenly appeared and carried an imperial aura, he had no choice but to follow Li Yunhao's instructions since he was under the Li family's roof.

Protector You immediately pointed a finger, channeling the full power of a Perfected Transcendent Realm cultivator, towards Chu Xiu.

Chu Xiu faced the finger directly, and perhaps because he was empowered by imperial aura, he did not feel the overwhelming pressure of the magical power.

Just as Chu Xiu's eyes gleamed with fervor, intending to take the finger strike head-on and experience the power of a peak True Transcending Realm expert—

A blazing light suddenly shot out from his body, heading straight for Protector You's illusory finger, which was imbued with all his might.

Chi Xiao?

After clearly seeing the source of the blazing light, Chu Xiu once again concealed his aura.

Even after recognizing Chu Xiu as his master, the Crimson Sky Sword, gifted by Senior Yao... no, Emperor Yao, was not entirely under his control like the Heaven-Suppressing Ruler.

On the contrary, Chixiao seems to have independent thoughts and will act in his own way.

Chu Xiu did not stop the Crimson Sky Sword from meeting Protector You's full-force attack. He wanted to see just how powerful this immortal weapon, which had followed Emperor Yao for countless years, truly was!

The blazing light transformed from the Crimson Sky Sword's escape beam suddenly changed as it approached the finger strike from Protector You, transforming into a red-haired woman dressed in a tight-fitting outfit.

The moment the woman appeared, two illusory figures, a dragon and a phoenix, soared into the sky, emitting dragon roars and phoenix cries. They then transformed into inscriptions, which were engraved on the woman's tight-fitting clothes, lifelike in appearance.

"roll."

The red-haired woman parted her red lips slightly, and a devastating force, unimaginable even to the peak True Transcending Realm experts present, shattered Protector You's finger.

Before he could react, the power of collapse was unleashed upon him, causing an explosion in an instant. However, the red-haired woman controlled the explosion to be confined to a half-meter radius around him, preventing any harm to others.

Protector You was severely injured and coughed up blood in just one exchange. His body was mangled and collapsed to the ground in the explosion!

Protector You struggled several times, but each time he was unable to get up.

He looked at the red-haired woman in disbelief, his eyes filled with the fear of facing death.

This woman was able to injure me so severely with just a single word!

Even the current head of the Li family couldn't do that!

"Who are you? Who exactly are you?!"

Seeing his reliance severely injured by the red-haired woman, Li Yunhao roared in fear.

The red-haired woman, who was transformed from the Crimson Sky Sword, frowned, seemingly annoyed by Li Yunhao's ghostly cries. She immediately waved her hand, and countless sword lights slashed towards Li Yunhao's head.

Suddenly, Li Yunhao's body shone with golden light, blocking the red-haired woman's casual sword strike.

The red-haired woman raised her head slightly and saw an old man dressed in a dragon-patterned robe suddenly appear above the Chu family. He stood with his hands behind his back, and his body shone with golden light, just like the golden light that protected Li Yunhao.

The moment the old man appeared, he fixed his gaze on Chu Xiu, who was surrounded by a hundred streams of imperial aura.

The red-haired woman flashed to Chu Xiu's side and shielded him behind her.

Chu Xiu leaned forward slightly, "Senior...?"

The red-haired woman smiled and said, "Master, there's no need for that. Just call me Chixiao."

Chu Xiu nodded and looked at the old man in the dragon robe standing in mid-air.

Just as he had thought, the woman before him was indeed the sword spirit of the Crimson Sky Sword!

A sword spirit who has fought alongside Emperor Yao for countless years!

A sword spirit who can instantly kill a True Transcending Realm expert with a single word!

Chu Xiu suddenly realized that the puppet at the fifth level of the Transcendent Realm in his storage space was already useless even before it was used.

"Master, be careful."

Chi Xiao's lips parted slightly, "That old guy up there is at the first level of the Reincarnation Realm!"

A Reincarnation Realm expert!

The Li family truly deserves to call itself the number one family among the human races of the Southern Lands; their foundation is something that the Lin and Chu families of Yu City cannot match.

"Who exactly are you! You dare to injure my Li family's protector and premeditatedly kill members of my Li family? You must give me an explanation today!"

The old man in the dragon robe landed in front of Li Yunhao, his gaze fixed on Chu Xiu behind Chi Xiao.

With his strength, he could naturally recognize that the red-haired woman was a sword spirit, a sword spirit with unfathomable strength, and the young man behind her was her master.

"Second Elder! Kill him!"

When Li Yunhao saw his Second Elder suddenly appear and save him, he immediately pointed at Chu Xiu and roared.

The second elder of the Li family's face darkened. If it weren't for Li Yunhao's status, he would have liked to slap this brainless guy to death.

But at this moment, he had no choice but to suppress his anger and patiently explain to Li Yunhao through telepathy: "Third Young Master, please calm down. That red-haired woman is no ordinary person. She may even be stronger than me!"

Upon hearing this, Li Yunhao immediately fell silent, shrinking back and hiding behind his second elder.

Are you kidding...

Is he even better than the Second Elder, who is at the first level of the Reincarnation Realm?

Li Yunhao's arrogance immediately vanished.

He knew that the strongest person among his entourage was the Second Elder. If he encountered someone that even the Second Elder couldn't defeat, he could only restrain his arrogance and seek revenge later.

Chu Xiu ignored the threatening tone in the Second Elder of the Li family's words, suddenly turned his head and raised an eyebrow at Lin Chongyang, pretending that the two of them were very familiar with each other.

Lin Chongyang was dumbfounded. Faced with Lin Qingyao's questioning gaze, he really didn't know how to explain that he didn't know this person at all.

The cultivators present were all speculating about Chu Xiu's identity.

Only those at the Transcendent Realm could recognize the imperial aura emanating from him.

Lin Qingyao looked at Chu Xiu and remained silent.

Fragments of memory flashed through her mind, and she felt as if she had seen this young man before.

Her tightly furrowed brows relaxed, and she only then realized that the heavy Yin energy that had been invading her meridians had suddenly subsided and was no longer rampant.

Suddenly, the demon's incessant chatter disappeared from my mind...

It was as if, after the red-haired woman appeared, the demon's voice vanished from his mind...

The Chu family's Supreme Elder was the oldest person present. Ever since Chi Xiao appeared, she had been staring intently at his face, searching her memory for his features.

Suddenly, she seemed to realize something, her face showing fear. She took two quick steps back, bumping into Chu Xuanling behind her before stopping.

"is her……"

"Yes, it must be her!"

"The red-haired sword spirit under the previous Human Emperor!"