Tentative Contact

"When did this letter arrive within Shenzhou?" Xia Fan asked gravely after reading it in full, turning to the messenger.

"My lord, about three days ago," the man replied.

"And before that? Did the bearer mention when the client had handed him the letter?"

"This... this subordinate does not know."

"What is it?" Ning Wanjun noticed his unusual expression as well. "Did something happen on Luo Qingqing's end?"

"Not for the moment. But judging from the letter's contents, we're the ones in trouble." Xia Fan clenched the wooden ring in his hand—if Luo Qingqing's words were true, then aside from Seven Stars and Evil Spirits, they now faced another new threat. Worse, this threat could turn the people one trusted most into deadly enemies in the blink of an eye. For a society that relied on human relationships to function, it was nothing less than a devastating blow.

Furthermore, the latter half of Luo Qingqing's writing had become extremely messy, likely added in haste. Yet its contents were equally shocking, sounding like a fantasy at first glance. Anyone else might have given it one part belief and nine parts doubt, but Xia Fan believed at least half of it. Not for any other reason than that he had personally witnessed the Great Demon being swallowed by a rift at Azure Fort, along with the bizarre space beyond it.

There, he had encountered an ugly, vaguely humanoid monster.

It had indeed seemed to be cut off by something, never able to come within a single step of him.

The same had happened when he fought the An Clan's Onmyoji.

Before the Demon perished, a crack had also appeared in the skies above Great Desolation Evil Night.

If the space beyond the rifts was another world, then it did match what the