The commotion at the Heart-of-the-Lake Pavilion was immense. Azure spirit light danced across the sky, while threads of clear light sliced through the heavens.
Every movement radiated terrifying power. Spiritual energy churned violently all around, fierce winds sprang up over the lake, and the light tore long, narrow rifts through the clouds.
Blood-Qi Warriors across more than half of Verdant Grain County saw it from afar. Their chests felt heavy, even the flow of their blood-qi turned sluggish, and they raised their heads toward the lake's center.
By the time Wei Tianhui and Qin Anming hurried over, the Heart-of-the-Lake Pavilion lay in ruins. Waves surged without cease, and shattered stone tables and stools littered the pavilion.
Spiritual energy seared the moisture rising from the lake into white mist, only for an unseen force to rip it apart.
"This is..." Qin Anming stared in shock, struggling even to breathe. "Did the Dean and Qinglü, High Cultivator, start fighting?"
Wei Tianhui stood with his hands behind his back, longing to break through and become a Spirit Cultivator surging in his eyes.
He could clearly sense that no flesh-and-blood body could have unleashed the power he had just witnessed.
With a mere gesture, a Spirit Cultivator could summon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, stir the landscape from a thousand miles away, and borrow the sky's might to strike an enemy.
A Blood-Qi Warrior's power resided in flesh and blood; a Spirit Cultivator's power lay in heaven and earth.
They existed on entirely different planes.
At the Liu Household in the east of the county, Liu Yunche caught sight of clear light tearing through everything above the Martial Academy like a raging gale.
"Is that... Master fighting someone?"
His eyes shifted as he gazed toward the spirit light crisscrossing the sky above