The Huashan Sect and the Taishan Sect were the Central Plains' two great sword sects, famed throughout the land for their swordsmanship.
The Huashan Sect had over a thousand disciples, which sounded fewer than the Iron Palm Gang's three thousand members.
But the Iron Palm Gang's three thousand members varied wildly in quality; no more than five hundred of them could truly fight. The Huashan Sect's thousand disciples, meanwhile, all possessed genuine martial skills passed down from generation to generation.
The Huashan Sect's leader was Zong Gui, a man in his forties whose swordsmanship had reached a miraculous level.
The blade of his sword bore naturally formed golden patterns. When he fought, its gleam was as dazzling and resplendent as the morning glow. Thus, he had been given the nickname "Golden Radiance Swordsman."
The Huashan Sect was only two days' journey from Luyang City, so Zong Gui had been the first to receive news from there.
When he first heard that the Heavenly Demons were disciples who had defected from under Nie Nong, he did not believe it—even though that disciple had sworn to the heavens and vowed to the earth that he had personally seen Taotie.
After all, gods, ghosts, demons, and monsters were simply too bizarre. Unless one had seen them with one's own eyes, no one would readily believe such things, much less Zong Gui, the leader of a sect.
He stubbornly believed that the so-called Heavenly Demons and Taotie were merely tricks concocted by Jianghu swindlers.
The Peacekeeping Gang was nothing more than a sect like the Lotus Sect, using unorthodox methods to play at gods and ghosts and deceive the common people. Nie Nong, who oversaw Luyang City, had also been bewitched, which was why he had committed the foolish act of besieging the