Tianxuan Calendar (Tianqi), Year 260, August 19.
At the first break of dawn.
Lin Heng summoned every patriarch-level figure in the Heavenly Mystery Imperial Office to the stone hall for a meeting.
It was time to mobilize everyone and continue the Northern Expedition!
The people in the hall, who had been chattering nonstop, all turned toward the same direction at the sound of light footsteps.
Lin Heng straightened his back and slowly made his way toward the front, holding a scroll that resembled parchment in his hand.
Everyone watched curiously.
Ever since Lin Heng had toyed with a Demon Venerable barehanded in the palm of his hand, there had no longer been any voices of doubt within the Heavenly Mystery Imperial Office.
Who would dare say he had come in through the Back Door, promoted because the Female Emperor kept him?
"Everyone!! Since entering the Demon Domain, we have fought battles large and small against Demon Beast tribes for thirty-seven days, and lost at least one-fifth of our people."
"Perhaps from the very beginning, some of you doubted that I, the Chief Administrator, was leading you to your deaths!!"
"The facts have proven that Demon Beasts are not so powerful that our Human Race cultivators need fear them. Compared with the era of great demons on the Heavenly Profound Continent ten thousand years ago, the Demon Venerables back then were far more terrifying than those of today."
"Yet weren't they still..." Lin Heng raised a hand and pointed toward Wu Ba, Martial Man, and the others. "...slaughtered by these powerful martial cultivators, who fought and killed with their very blood and qi, carving out a grand era by force?"
"Whether cultivating immortality or training in martial arts, the strengths of a hundred schools will always have their merits and shortcomings!"