"Huh? What's going on?" By then, the people on the ground had noticed the spectacle in the sky too, and they cried out in surprise, chattering among themselves.
"Ah! It's the city-defense grand formation!" someone suddenly exclaimed.
"What city-defense formation? Is there a beast tide?"
"No way! Has the Mystic Heaven Way come to attack?"
"Heavens! Why have they activated the city-defense grand formation?"
"...!"
As cries rang out one after another, all of East Xia City descended into chaos.
Meanwhile, two figures hovered in the sky several miles away.
"Oh! Is that East Xia City? It looks as though something's happened!" exclaimed one of them, a female cultivator wearing a white palace dress and a white veil over her face.
"Hmm? They've activated the city-defense restrictions!" The other was an exceptionally handsome male cultivator with deep eyes and glossy black hair that reached his calves. Dressed in white, he floated barefoot in the air, looking equally surprised and puzzled.
These two were none other than Blue Ice and Ouyang Haotian, who had received the letter Li Xiaoya had entrusted to the Bounty Hall. They had headed straight here, but some incidents along the way had delayed them. Having only just arrived at East Xia City, they found it in utter turmoil. Rather than rashly approach, they hovered in the sky to discuss what to do.
"The city-defense restrictions?" Blue Ice exclaimed. After a pause, she looked at Ouyang Haotian and asked, "Say, Senior, could they have discovered you and become afraid you'd attack them?"
"How could that be? These city-defense restrictions may be powerful, but they can't stop a Spirit Communion Stage cultivator!" Ouyang Haotian shook his head. Looking toward East Xia City, he explained, "Normally, these restrictions are only activated to defend against large-scale demon beast attacks or