A Hundred Thousand Fair Faces, a Hundred Thousand Bloodshed - Though the Seas Overturned Again and Again, Still They Were Drunk on the Spring Breeze

When had it become like this? Willow-shaded teahouses, stone bridges, narrow lanes-those seemed to be the places where I belonged. Even if someone bullied me, I would only repay them with equally sly tricks, making mischief in secret or fighting openly. At worst, I would roll around in the dust until my cotton clothes were torn. When had I come to stand alone, facing ten thousand flying dragons and towering demonic miasma above, sheltering countless Monster-Deities and hundreds of millions of living beings below? I truly never wanted this. Being killed was certainly not my wish, but killing others was no pleasure either. Muddling through the dusty world, hiding behind the powerful and the highborn to scrape together a living-that had always been my ambition and my habit...

With nothing more than "circumstances demanded it," this unambitious Four Seas Hall Master had been thrust before every watching eye. Everything had changed in the flash of lightning, and before he could quite gather his wits, he had been left alone to face the dragons and serpents filling the sky.

The fierce dragons came flying. Though they were still thousands of miles away, the powerful currents stirred by their scales and claws were already pressing against him. As the dragons soared through the heavens, the watery Great Light Shield above the sea rocked beneath those swirling currents, giving off rushing sounds. No one could be certain whether these savage creatures possessed of intelligence would burst into harmless fragments like the meteors when they struck the transparent shield. Only a trial could answer that question, and the price might be beyond reckoning.

The swarm of dragons flew from the depths of the southern sky like a plague of locusts, drawing ever closer. When only a few hundred miles remained, they suddenly slowed, their