Sui Xiong had come to Keen Territory partly to revisit old haunts, but more importantly, he was here to help them resolve their troubles.
Over the past few months, Keen Barony had run into some exceedingly thorny problems. The trouble exceeded the limits of what they could handle themselves—or rather, exceeded what they could resolve at a relatively low cost—so they had sent a request for aid to the Church of Void Mask.
Ordinarily, sending a group of elite clergy along with one or two legendary powerhouses to hold the line would surely have been enough to settle the matter. But Sui Xiong, restless after too long a period of stillness, had a sudden whim to return and see this territory into which he had once poured countless efforts with his own eyes. So, without telling anyone, he secretly transformed into his earthly appearance and came here alone.
Sitting in Keen City now, his feelings were somewhat complicated—Crick Keen's life was also part of his own life, and Crick's deep affection for this land and its people had likewise been inherited by him. Seeing that the city he had been away from for so many years was still prosperous, and was still following the path he had laid down back then, filled him with both comfort and a deep sense of responsibility.
"Perhaps... I should have come back more often over the years..."
The long-lived often encountered this problem. Their vastly extended lifespans and lengthy cultivation left them with little sense of mortal time—for instance, when Shelter held a large-scale military exercise, it was perfectly normal for two or three years to pass from the decision to conduct it, through designing and building the positions, then both sides' planning and preparations, to the actual start of the war and the