Heaven-Earth Tidal Surge

The Shadow Pavilion.

It was a rather mysterious department in the Mortal Domain—or perhaps one with so little presence that many new members had barely heard of it.

It had no glorious record like the War Pavilion's, whose entire force had once fallen in battle.

Nor did it have the Logistics Pavilion's frequent chances to appear at the center of operations.

Still less was it like the newly formed Strategist Pavilion, a core department.

It was almost as though the department had been abandoned.

But...

In the final days before the journey to the War Mire,

Nearly every member of the Shadow Pavilion spread out across the continents in this sea. They had one task: investigate the backgrounds of the nearly eighty thousand people who had joined the Mortal Domain.

Dressed in plain clothes, Shao Qiu wore neither a bamboo hat nor anything else to conceal his face. Accompanied by an attendant, he strode calmly into a town on one of the continents.

Before long, he spotted an old farmer working in a field.

He walked over with a smile.

"Sir, my name is Zhang Youren. Someone named Tian Youwei borrowed money from me last year and still hasn't paid it back. I heard he lives around here. Do you know him?"

The moment he finished speaking,

"Pah!"

The old farmer spat a thick wad of phlegm into the field. "That bastard died. Good riddance!"

Then he looked at Shao Qiu with some regret.

"Young man."

"I'm afraid you won't see that money again. He had no parents and was a notorious scoundrel for miles around. A blacksmith bashed his head in with a hammer a few days ago. Nobody even dealt with his body. The wild dogs got to it."

"Is that so?"

Shao Qiu frowned. "Do you know