The Twelve Seas

Yang Guyun walked beside Zhou Qiubai, his expression unchanged under the gazes of the entire street.

Because he had never cared how many people were watching him.

They passed through the stone archway at the street corner, and the view before them suddenly opened wide.

It was an enormous circular training ground. The stone surface was densely covered in marks left by battle—some sword scars, some saber cuts, and several pits several feet deep, as if they had been smashed out by some heavy weapon.

Twelve stone pillars stood around the training ground, each carved with different patterns. Vaguely, one could make out the structure of a complete formation.

At the far end of the training ground, Canghai Tower pierced straight into the clouds. From this distance, it gave off a pressure ten times stronger than it had from Lower Cliff.

Twelve people were already waiting in the training ground.

They stood very casually, neither in a square formation nor in columns, scattered across the field in groups of twos and threes.

But the distance they maintained between one another was extremely subtle. The gaps between each person were just enough for a rapid change of position; they could retreat to defend or advance to attack. They seemed casual, but in truth, they had the entire central area of the training ground under their control.

This positioning was not deliberate, but an instinct accumulated over the years.

The one standing at the very front was a slender man with a longsword at his waist, its hilt wrapped in faded strips of blue cloth.

He looked toward Zhou Qiubai and Yang Guyun as they approached, a helpless smile appearing on his face.

"Lu Qinghou." He introduced himself in a tone as if he had run into an old friend at a