As time passed...
On the bluestone avenue of Listen Tide Immortal City, the crowd parted to either side like a receding tide.
More than ten cultivators from the Enforcement Division, dressed in black uniforms and wearing solemn expressions, escorted a man forward at a slow pace.
The prisoner's hair hung loose and disheveled, his robes were torn, and his face was smeared with dust and blood. He cut a thoroughly wretched figure.
—It was none other than Zeng Guanhai, the Foundation Establishment cultivator who had once enjoyed considerable renown in this immortal city.
The windows of the buildings lining the long street, the spaces beneath the eaves and corridors, had long been crammed with cultivators who had rushed over upon hearing the news.
Countless gazes, almost tangible, locked tightly onto the group.
Pointing fingers and hushed whispers
were at first merely scattered ripples, but quickly converged into a tide of voices that could no longer be suppressed.
"Look... isn't that Zeng Guanhai?"
A lanky cultivator was the first to cry out in alarm, his folding fan forgotten in his hand.
His companion narrowed his eyes for a closer look and sucked in a sharp breath.
"Huh!
With his hair all over the place, I really didn't recognize him at first... What could he have done?"
The discussions immediately erupted.
"What do you mean, merely done something? Didn't you see who's at the head of the escort?"
A middle-aged female cultivator lowered her voice and pointed at the green-robed cultivator at the front of the procession, his features lean and refined, his steps steady.
"That's Senior Wang, Director Wang of the Enforcement Division! A Golden Core True Person personally escorting him—this kind of spectacle..."
"That's right!" someone suddenly recalled.
"Just now, Spirit Pressure erupted in the east of the city, and