"It seemed Illusion Devil Lord would not be coming again."
Black snow blanketed the sky and fell upon the eagle banners. Before the tent entrance, the Divine Crown High Priestess of the Azure Firmament Divine Church let out a slightly regretful sigh.
Jin Tandu, who had returned from withdrawing the troops, slowly wiped the blood from his face with a piece of cloud cloth. "How would he dare come looking for you?"
"Those consumed by greed and delusion will not stop. He would certainly have come originally, and I had prepared to receive my guest... But in an age of great contention, circumstances change in the blink of an eye."
Tu Hu reached a hand into the sky, catching a flake of black snow on his fingertip. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. All in all, I would rather face old friends."
Jin Tandu turned back to glance at the enemy formation in the distance.
Sun-Moon Decline Severance had utterly overturned the natural order, and the war had brought this black snow. The Central Celestial Realm had been completely transformed.
The Azure Cauldron Army, reputed to be the Sea Race's strongest force, lay silently concealed beneath the black snow like an unbroken range of distant mountains.
Faint golden light shimmered deep within the mountain's body, dissolving the resentments of war. If one listened closely, there were even traces of Buddhist chants, there and gone like a phantom. They unsettled the mind.
"The Sea Race has brought out its last reserves as well."
"The Great Prison Emperor Lord, hailed as the foremost in Cang Sea warfare, is one thing... but even Dragon Incense Bodhisattva of the Dragon Splendor Pure Land has come for the sake of war."
Jin Tandu silently counted the shifts in the Azure Cauldron