Zhang Tie's arrival utterly set all of Saint Petersburg ablaze. By nightfall, the entire city was decked in lights and decorations, revelry everywhere. A grand banquet was also being held within the Summer Palace...
This banquet was not only to welcome Zhang Tie's return, but also to celebrate the Sacred Ice Island Kingdom's survival of the crisis brought by the Holy Light Empire.
Though Zhang Tie had not said so outright, everyone—including High Priest Shalin—firmly believed that he had a powerful Sky Knight backing him. With such a patron behind him, what was there left to worry about? Every important figure in the upper ranks of the Sacred Ice Island Kingdom breathed a sigh of relief, their hearts surging with excitement.
This banquet gathered together all the prominent figures of the Sacred Ice Island Kingdom: elders and chieftains from the major bear-level tribes, along with the representatives of their younger generations and family members whom those elders and chieftains had brought to meet Zhang Tie; bishops, resident priests, and other Ancient God Church personnel of higher standing gathered in Saint Petersburg; Empress Aurora; and Zhang Tie's lovers and consorts, such as Shabalina, Matiya, Belle, and Lady Olina, together with all the princes and imperial princes.
Among all those present, aside from Aurora, the most eye-catching women were the six women of the Spencer Family. The Spencer Family, long famed throughout the Ice and Snow Wilderness for its women, had in recent years shaken the entire Sacred Ice Island Kingdom with its six princes from a single household.
Because these princes and imperial princes had all been carried for a year before being born, because their births had been accompanied by unusual signs such as strange fragrances, because each possessed certain peculiar physical traits, and because all eight princes and one