Full Strength Slash Still Lacks Skill, Coldness Congeals the Heart to Know the Enemy's Might

The desert night was deep as ink, yet inside the great tent of Right Worthy King Luandi Modun, the candlelight shone as bright as day. More than a dozen massive tallow candles burned fiercely, illuminating every corner of the tent in the finest detail.

Modun sat upright upon a throne draped with an entire tiger hide, his expression as gloomy as gathering storm clouds. The treasured black iron saber he kept close at hand lay in his palm as he examined and stroked it.

Seven gemstones of different colors were set into the bronze scabbard, their mellow gleam shifting beneath the candlelight. Its edges had been polished smooth and bright by his constant caressing over the years, bearing the lustrous patina of time.

The strange destruction of the Xiutu Tribe weighed on his heart like a boulder of a thousand catties, leaving him tossing and turning in unrest. And the continued absence of the Eagle Scout Camp only made that anxiety spread wildly like creeping vines, throwing his thoughts into turmoil.

A burst of light yet urgent hoofbeats suddenly sounded outside the tent. The faint noise of cloth-wrapped hooves vanished in an instant, followed by a personal guard entering with a bow and reporting gravely, "Your Highness, Commander Hulü has returned with the Eagle Camp's elite!"

"Let him in!"

Modun abruptly raised his eyes. A trace of urgency flashed through the gloom in them, and the pressure radiating from him intensified sharply.

Luandi Hulü's black robes carried the desert wind and sand with them, their hems still stained with dust and bits of grass not yet shaken free. Though his face could not hide the exhaustion of a long, hard ride, his eyes remained sharp as a hawk's, carrying a piercing edge that seemed to see through all things.

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