"This is going too far! Far too far!"
Crack! A thunderous bang shook the hall.
In the Luo Clan's ancestral grounds in Golden Embankment City, several clan elders gathered in the hall where they usually convened to discuss a piece of news they had just received. The second elder, who had the fiercest temper, slammed his palm onto the table on the spot, looking utterly beside himself with rage.
"Second Uncle, calm down."
"Don't make yourself ill with anger!"
"That's right. This won't solve anything."
The somewhat younger members of the Luo Clan's current direct lineage, though also middle-aged, all tried to soothe him.
Only then did the second elder sit back down, still seething.
"They are indeed going too far, but they are one of the world's great sects, after all. They have the power to throw their weight around," said an elderly man in brocade robes beside the second elder, his hair likewise white and his face aged.
His face bore a bitter, sorrowful look, like an old farmer watching his seedlings wither in a year of terrible drought, powerless to turn back the heavens.
He was the Luo Clan's former patriarch, who still advised the council of clan elders. His presence also meant that virtually all the elders of both the old and current generations who could attend had now assembled.
What they were discussing concerned the very foundation of the Luo Clan's vigorous growth and prosperity over the centuries since its rise-the Chuanlan spirit mine.
Not long before, someone had suddenly delivered a verbal message from Fang Qianyuan, declaring that he had taken over the Chuanlan spirit mine on behalf of the Azure Cloud Sect. He was now gathering manpower to resist the demons and required the Luo Clan and Qian Clan, as the local powers,