In the eastern part of the Dragon Mountain Imperial Capital, three streets away from the Imperial Palace, lay a district inhabited by the Dragon Mountain Empire's foremost noble houses and wealthy merchants.
As on the other streets, every intersection in this vast district, home to thousands upon thousands of top-tier merchants, was crowded with performers putting on shows today. Clowns, magicians, witches in hideous masks, dancers, singers, wandering crystal-ball fortune-tellers, and all manner of strange and curious entertainers had been hired by the Dragon Mountain Empire at great expense to add splendor to today's court banquet.
The moment Lin Kaixuan crushed the crystal ball in his hand, all the actors of a troupe performing on a stage at one intersection—a troupe dressed in crude leather armor and putting on a melodramatic love story between a young nobleman and a commoner girl—suddenly shuddered. Clangs rang out without end as nearly a hundred actors simultaneously tore away their bloated costumes, revealing tight leather armor beneath, and drew gleaming weapons.
Several magicians who had been amusing passing children with little tricks such as "Firework Magic" abruptly lost their smiling expressions. With a wave of their hands, wands radiating powerful magical fluctuations appeared in their grasp. Amid piercing howls, they poured every last drop of magic power into their wands and unleashed, with all their strength, the simplest yet most practical spell of all—"Magic Missile."
Hundreds of head-sized magic missiles of various elements trailed long tails of flame as they shrieked toward the grand residences all around them. These magicians clearly possessed peak Earth-rank strength, just one step away from crossing the threshold into Heaven-rank mages. Working together, they could reduce every building along half a street to rubble in a very short time.
The actors who leaped down from the stage and crawled