Great Yu Province, the Holy City of the Imperial Capital.
Divine radiance wreathed the towering Imperial Palace. Officials of every rank living in the Imperial Capital dressed solemnly and set out for that day's court session.
News had arrived of the incident at Boundless Mountain, far away on Qing Prefecture's frontier. Undercurrents had already begun surging through this capital, where official power was both most concentrated and most tangled. Countless people had lain awake the night before.
When they first heard the news, many suspected their intelligence was wrong. Only after contacting their acquaintances did they realize that someone really had pierced the heavens!
One was the Buddha Master, the leader who bore the Buddhist Sect's incense offerings.
The other was an unparalleled prodigy whose star had recently risen like the sun at its zenith, dazzling beyond measure.
Despite his youth, he possessed terrifying strength and illustrious achievements, with limitless prospects ahead.
To think that these two brilliant stars of the human race would collide-it was simply shocking.
The impact of that collision would spread through countless factions, great and small. Though its leader was dead, the Buddhist Sect would not scatter like birds and beasts. Even ordinary martial sects, unless uprooted completely, had disciples who endured in silence for years to avenge their sect. How much more so a religion like the Buddhist Sect, bound together by solidarity and faith?
The Buddhist Sect's roots ran extremely deep. Hundreds of years earlier, the Yu Emperor had forbidden members of the Imperial Family from converting to Buddhism, citing their sparse bloodline and the need to produce descendants.
Yet beyond the imperial bloodline, many once-prominent dignitaries-officials, ministers, retired generals, and others-had entered the Buddhist fold, either willingly or through covert guidance, seeking peace and comfort of mind.
Now that the Buddha Master