Yang Wudi was the first to react.
He was reviewing Military Affairs on the second floor of the City Lord's Mansion. Before he could put down his brush, the sounds outside the window abruptly stopped.
They had not grown quieter. They had stopped completely.
Jade Dragon City was a vast city with several million inhabitants. It was never quiet during the day.
Hawkers' cries, the clatter of carts and horses, children crying, cultivators cutting through the air on flying swords—all those sounds overlapped, enough to make a man's head ache.
Now, they were all gone.
Yang Wudi flung his brush aside and shot through the window.
Before his feet touched the ground, his entire body froze.
Every Mortal in the city lay sprawled on the ground.
They lay in the streets and inside shops. A mason repairing roof tiles lay across the tiles, and a girl drawing water beside a well lay slumped over its rim.
As far as the eye could see, not a single person remained standing.
Yang Wudi landed at the nearest street corner and reached out to turn over a middle-aged man who had collapsed behind a stall.
There was no pain on the man's face.
His heartbeat was steady, his breathing slow and deep, as though he were asleep.
No—it was deeper than sleep.
Yang Wudi turned over three or four more people. They were all the same.
Their eyes were closed, their faces quiet, even faintly bearing an indescribable...
Serenity.
A devout serenity.
Yang Wudi's scalp began to prickle.
"Someone, come!"
His roar echoed twice through the empty street.
Several Yang Clan disciples dropped from the rooftops, their faces ashen.
"Clan head, it isn't just this street—"
"All the Mortals in Jade Dragon City have collapsed!"
Yang Wudi's expression shifted again and again. He