Dragon City's Counter Within a Counter

Northwest Dragon City, the sky was high and the clouds pale.

It was still late April. The moon had yet to rise, leaving only hazy starlight.

The starlight flowed like water, illuminating Dragon City's thousand years of vicissitudes.

The iron-blue city walls glimmered with a blood-colored sheen beneath the watery starlight.

This was a Military City, a true Military City.

There were few commoners within the city. Other than iron-blooded soldiers, there were only battle flags flying high.

At the Commander's Prefecture, a solitary lamp burned. Dozens of guards stood watch outside. Through the window, they could see Marshal Li Xiaotian inside. Marshal Li was a scholar. No matter what trade a scholar ultimately entered, the air of scholarship remained in his bones. Marshal Li was precisely such a man: mounting his horse, he could wage war; dismounting, he could compose poetry. By day, the military camp blazed like a crimson sun; by night, he read the Spring and Autumn Annals and became a Great Confucian.

Beneath the solitary lamp, Li Xiaotian held an ancient scroll in one hand, while the brush in his other danced like dragons and serpents across the page...

The night had grown deep and quiet, yet he showed no intention of resting...

Suddenly, the brush touching the paper stopped in midair...

His gaze snapped upward...

Everything around him had changed...

The once-quiet Commander's Prefecture had become even quieter, and it was now so dark that he could not see his own hand before his face!

Li Xiaotian sprang up in alarm. "Who is it?"

As he shouted, his hand reached for his waist...

Two things hung there: his Commander's Seal and his longsword...

Yet the Commander's Seal vanished into thin air. His longsword was still in his hand, but he had no strength to draw