Thirty thousand armored soldiers of the Spirit-Commanding Army marched in formation, advancing in a vast, imposing procession toward the garrison square beside Tai Chi Hall's side hall.
This army, directly subordinate to the Eastern Palace, had begun taking shape as early as the princess consort's pregnancy.
Every soldier had been selected through successive rounds of screening from the myriad tribes of Azure Sea Lake. They were elites chosen from thousands, and even the lowest-ranked soldier had firmly established third-tier cultivation and formidable combat strength.
Though people commonly called it the Spirit-Commanding Army, this powerful force answered only to the Eastern Palace. It was, in every sense, the crown prince's personal army, with exceptional authority and a status above the ordinary.
The Spirit-Commanding Army had three commanders, all at the sixth tier: two men and one woman.
The army's chief commander was named Han Yan. He belonged to a race found only in Azure Sea Lake—the Clear Spring Strange Stone Water Tribe.
This tribe was a spiritual race uniquely blessed by heaven and earth, endowed with awakened intelligence and extraordinary natural gifts. Even its method of reproduction was rare in the world: a female needed only to sit upon one of Azure Sea Lake's special spirit springs and absorb the moonlight and the spring's spiritual essence for several months. She could then condense that energy and bear a child, without any need for the ordinary union of yin and yang.
The Clear Spring Strange Stone tribe was born only within Azure Sea Lake's hidden spirit-spring domains. Generation after generation had enjoyed the Dragon Monarch's blessings and faithfully served the Azure Sea Dragon Court, making it the purest and most dependable of the region's subordinate aristocratic clans.
Members of this tribe could not survive apart from the spiritual essence of Azure Sea