Fine threads of rain spread like an invisible net across the sky, shrouding the immense city that stood at Great Zhou's southwestern frontier in a haze of mist and rain.
Beyond its walls, troubled times had set the land ablaze with war. Yet between Heavenly Abyss City's Inner City and Outer City, lamps still burned brightly, and the streets bustled as though it were day.
Heavenly Abyss Mystic Guards patrolled the streets in full armor, the black iron reflecting a cold gleam through the rainy night that put people at ease.
But at the heart of the vast city, within the Protectorate Prefecture's tallest building—the Wind-Listening Pavilion—a suffocating silence reigned.
In name, the Wind-Listening Pavilion was an elegant retreat where Prince Who Quells the North Chu Bai could admire the view from on high, listen to the wind, and drink tea.
In truth, the highest ranks of the Heavenly Abyss District and even the Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty had heard that it was Heavenly Abyss City's most vital and secret intelligence hub.
Over the past ten years, as the Heavenly Abyss Merchant Alliance spread its reach through Qingzhou, Yunzhou, Yuezhou, and even Great Zhou's heartland with near-frenzied speed, Chu Bai's Formless Guards—once responsible only for city defense and assassinations—had undergone a transformation as thorough as shedding their skin and remaking their bones.
Trade routes were spy networks.
A Heavenly Abyss Pavilion shopkeeper, a guard escorting spirit ore, a wealthy patron haunting the pleasure quarters, even a disabled Rogue Cultivator begging on the Divine Capital's Vermilion Bird Avenue... Any of them might be an informant the Formless Guards had planted somewhere in the realm.
Wherever Spirit Stones changed hands, wherever Soul Crystals were traded on the black market, the Formless Guards' reach seeped silently into every pore of the Great Zhou