The Federation Speaker's Confusion

While the Thousand Ancient Family secretly pushed forward with their plan to desecrate their ancestors in the shadows, the Federation Speaker's office at the heart of Mingdu's power was steeped in a deathly silence and confusion utterly at odds with the clamor outside.

Xu Tiandi sat alone in a custom-made wheelchair, his back to the mountain of documents piled atop the massive desk and his face turned toward the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.

Outside lay the magnificent sight of Mingdu, the capital of the Sun Moon Federation: towering Soul Guiding buildings stood in neat rows, aerial railcars streaked endlessly through the sky like flowing light, and the entire city glittered beneath the glow of Soul Guiding Lamps, brimming with vitality and order.

This had once been proof of how he had poured his heart and soul into leading the Federation, step by step, toward prosperity and strength.

Yet now, there was none of the high-spirited confidence of a man in control on his face. There was only bottomless confusion and emptiness.

Those eyes, once as sharp as an eagle's and capable of making countless political enemies tremble, had now lost their focus. It was as if they had looked beyond the prosperity before them and seen a distant, shattered past.

Ever since he had dragged this broken body back from the battlefield where Shrek Academy had been utterly destroyed, an unprecedented sense of hollowness had enveloped and devoured him like an icy tide.

The only two obsessions in his life, the goals that had carried him through countless difficult years—avenging himself on Yun Ming and confronting Ya Li face-to-face—had suddenly and completely been fulfilled in this manner.

Yun Ming was dead, body and soul annihilated beneath the killing blow Xu Tiandi had personally planned.

Ya Li was dead as well. Along