On Cloud Summit Peak, in a courtyard tucked into the rear slopes of its southwestern Side Peak.
The early spring chill was biting, and the wind still carried a trace of cold as it blew into the courtyard's inner grounds.
Wu Longjie led several trusted subordinates, accompanying a group of stewards and elders from the Heavenly Dao Alliance into the place where Yan Zhou was temporarily imprisoned.
Since Yan Zhou was now a major prisoner whose fate tugged at the concerns of every faction, they had employed excellent healing methods to bring him around. To prevent the Demon Alliance from taking a desperate risk and sending men to break him out, they had also stationed guards as impenetrable as an iron wall, making it seem as though Yan Zhou were the master here, someone of exalted status who must come to no harm.
But everyone present understood the purpose of this visit. Their faces expressionless, they filed in like wooden figures, entering a small room enclosed by walls on all four sides, with nothing inside except a row of seats and a single chair facing them.
Even the window had been bricked up with stone, then sealed tight beneath a thick layer of molten iron.
Elsewhere, thick iron spikes had been driven in every few paces. Judging by the mysterious Dao patterns exposed on their surfaces, they were magical-artifact restriction nodes. A metallic sheen, seemingly both illusory and real, rippled across the inner and outer walls, giving them the solidity of bronze ramparts and iron bulwarks.
Several candles as thick as a human arm burned fiercely on iron candleholders. In the sealed room, they made the air grow foul.
Yet everyone remained expressionless and silently took their places in the row of seats.
Before long, Yan Zhou entered wearing a