Several days later.
Through wind and snow, they traveled south, until the remote town of Anping County, under Great Wall Prefecture's jurisdiction, finally emerged faintly on the horizon.
Compared with the splendor and grandeur of the Great Wall Prefectural City, Anping County's walls looked rather drab and weathered.
This was the lowest tier of the Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty's rule, a place where fish and dragons truly mingled, where people of every stripe intertwined in the shadows with demons and sinister spirits.
Today, however, an unusually oppressive atmosphere hung over Anping County, shot through with restless agitation.
The snow had been cleared early from the broad main thoroughfare paved with blue stone.
Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens and low-level rogue cultivators crowded both sides of the street. Even the upper floors of the teahouses and taverns were packed with spies sent by Anping County's Immortal Cultivation Clans.
"They're here! They're here!"
Someone cried out in a trembling voice, and the entire street instantly fell deathly silent.
The thunderous roll of iron-shod hooves came from the direction of the city gate.
Then a unit of heavily armored cavalry, clad from head to toe in black refined steel and wearing asura masks, stormed into Anping County like a black torrent of steel, carrying a murderous aura that soared to the heavens!
"Aah—! Those are the Inspection Office's elite black-armored cavalry from the Great Wall Prefectural City! Eighty riders! Every one of them an expert at the Qi Refining Late Stage!"
Up in a teahouse, an aristocratic clan head sucked in a breath of cold air, nearly dropping the jade balls he had been rolling in his hand.
But that was not the most astonishing sight.
At the center of the eighty black-armored riders was an enormous enchanted carriage drawn by three