Hai Qifeng and Ying Ji wore respectful expressions, their posture impeccable as they bowed with clasped hands.
Hong Yuan, however, looked up into the night sky at the crescent moon hanging overhead.
Beneath its cold, clear radiance, several black specks shot up from different directions, beating their wings as they soared into the sky.
Watching this, Hong Yuan's eyes rippled like water, and a clear sound of dripping water seemed to ring out.
Crystalline droplets sprang from his eyes, becoming invisible arrows that shot outward.
Their speed surpassed sound, surpassed anything words could describe. With a thought, they arrived.
A flurry of anguished bird cries rang out, and those black specks immediately fell from the sky.
Hong Yuan blurred out of sight before Hai Qifeng and Ying Ji, appearing on a long street in the Prefectural City like a streak of lightning.
He tapped his foot against the ground. An invisible field spread from his body, becoming a vast Net that descended over the area.
His figure flickered like a leaping arc of light, weaving through a watchman humming a tune, a swaying drunk, a beggar curled in a corner-a merchant trembling indoors, a wandering swordsman standing in the shadows with his hand on his sword-
Within roughly a li of the Tao Residence, Hong Yuan became a streak of clear light. Force streamed from his fingertips, and with each casual touch, another figure crumpled to the ground.
Under the combined perception of his mind and Other-Force Net, every Azure Coin Agent hiding in the darkness lay exposed.
Suddenly, Hong Yuan's ears twitched. Farther away, several sharp sounds of clothing cutting through the air suggested people fleeing at full speed. He swept his sleeve, raised a gale, and sped away within it.
A short while later, having killed twenty or