Emergency Evacuation

It was dusk on his fourth day in Great Liang. The sky had only just darkened, the camp lights were coming on one after another, and the aroma of dinner drifted over from the cooks' quarters.

He had just sat down in his lodgings when his personal terminal vibrated.

The vibration pattern was distinctive: the Military Department's highest-level encrypted emergency channel, exactly the same as when Feng Zhuohua had contacted him in the Northern Plains.

He answered immediately, and Feng Zhuohua's face appeared in the projection.

This time, Feng Zhuohua did not wear the grave expression he had last time. In its place was something more complicated.

There was tension, urgency, and a deeply suppressed anxiety.

"Grandmaster Xu, can you speak freely right now?"

Xu Wuyi nodded and said he could.

Feng Zhuohua wasted no time. "You must return to the Federation immediately. Right now. You cannot delay."

Xu Wuyi frowned slightly. "What happened?"

Feng Zhuohua drew a deep breath and lowered his voice, as though sharing a secret no one else could be allowed to hear.

"We just received reliable intelligence. The Feathered Human Clan has made a move."

"One of the four great temples' masters—we haven't fully confirmed which one, but we know that a Feathered Human King at the divine intent level has left the Feathered Human Homeworld and is heading toward the Great Liang Star Realm."

Xu Wuyi's gaze sharpened slightly.

The masters of the four great temples represented the Feathered Human Civilization's true pinnacle of combat strength. Every one of them was an ancient monster who had lived for over a thousand years, an existence on the same level as the Federation's Divine Intent Grandmasters.

Bloodwing, whom he had encountered in the Northern Plains, was also a temple elder, but he still stood a tier