Demon-Breaking

"Young man, you have drawn away most of your soul and power. It seems you have run into trouble." The plainly dressed old man who ran the little tavern smiled at the young man seated at the wooden table before the awning.

That man truly was young.

He looked about thirty.

Having come here,

he had only one or two small plates of cold dishes before him, plain to the extreme. Only the wine flask he had brought himself looked anything but ordinary. He had refilled the large bowl before him more than ten times in a row, yet the flask showed no sign of running dry.

The young man remained perfectly composed, quietly watching the sea bowl before him.

He said little. He only drank deeply.

A man with a good capacity for liquor naturally inspired goodwill, let alone one who drank so quietly and refused to make even the slightest drunken scene. People would likely only wonder why he drank like this, because he wore a black Daoist robe. Deep black, trimmed with muted gold and red, its dense golden stitching and differing inner and outer colors all displayed how extraordinary the robe was.

He dressed with great care.

From his nails to his hair, everything was groomed without a single flaw. Yet such a man was drinking by the roadside in an inconspicuous tea stall.

He must have encountered something important that had left him with no choice but to come here.

Seeing how calm he was, it was clearly not something sorrowful.

"Perhaps I am not the one in trouble. Perhaps someone else is." The man in the dark Daoist robe gave a cold laugh and answered blandly.

"Well said."

"For someone like you to draw out such power in the Starry Sea Domain, apart from