Central Province, Dragon Creek Commandery...
A faint, blurry white line had just appeared on the eastern horizon. Fairy Dragon Star, hanging in the eastern sky, was casting forth dazzling radiance before dawn. At this moment, the world was utterly silent.
A gray airship over five hundred meters long silently emerged from the stratosphere tens of thousands of meters above and entered the troposphere. Like an arrow, like a predatory beast diving for its prey, it tore through layers of clouds and flew straight toward the southeast of Dragon Creek Commandery.
At the airship's bow stood an elderly man with silver hair, dressed in black robes and wearing a Xiezhi Crown, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at the distant earth. Behind him, a group of expert knights from the Central Province Judicial Office stood solemnly at attention. For more than ten hours, the old man had not spoken, and the bow had been silent as a grave. No one else spoke either. Everyone merely watched the drifting clouds shatter past outside the airship and the land race backward beneath their feet, all remaining silent.
Compared with the Judicial Offices of Great Xia's other provinces, the strength of the Central Province Judicial Office—located in Central Province, one of Great Xia's nine great divine provinces—far surpassed that of the others. That much could be seen simply from the knights standing at the airship's bow.
You Province was a lower province of Great Xia. When You Province had first been established, Zhang Tie had taken charge of the You Province Judicial Office as a Black Iron Knight. Throughout the entire You Province Judicial Office system, he alone stood supreme; there had not been a second knight-level expert. Yet within the Central Province Judicial Office, there were directly more than twenty