Great Qi's Southern Frontier.
Inside Si Xuan Underground Palace.
A cultivator with an exceptionally youthful face suddenly opened his eyes.
Within those eyes, starlight whirled like lightning and star charts shifted, as though a vast Star River were flowing through the cosmos.
Moments later, everything stilled and returned to inky-black pupils. Endless mysteries lay hidden within.
In his pupils, the ancient Blade Coin placed in the distance silently cracked apart, all spirituality extinguished. Everything attached to it vanished as well, never to be seen again.
At last, he closed his eyes, merely sweeping his star-chart Daoist robe around himself as he sighed, "The younger generation is formidable indeed!"
It was unclear whether he meant the Marquis of Wu'an of Great Qi, or that Life-less Cult Ancestor.
Linzi City's towering metropolis, the Stargazing Tower.
As the tallest building in all of Linzi, indeed in all of Qi State, it rose straight into the heavens, piercing the clouds. Standing at its summit, one felt that one could reach out and touch the stars.
And at a certain moment, a slender figure fell from that very highest point!
Before even a whistling sound could rise, starlight flashed—and the figure was gone.
Within Marquis of Bowang's Mansion, Chongxuan Sheng sat before his desk. His fat hands flipped so quickly they nearly left afterimages, while his soybean-sized eyes darted constantly from side to side.
Spread across the desk were all manner of categorized intelligence reports. Nearly every scrap of information concerning Zhang Linchuan could be found here. Shadow Guards came and went at intervals, bringing the latest news from every corner of the Present World.
Shi Si stood silently to one side, only occasionally gathering up the reports Chongxuan Sheng had crossed out.
It was then that Ruan Zhou landed outside the door.