The Liao Capital, the Imperial Palace.
Within the main hall, deep iron-gray light shifted and changed, as though countless fiends and savage beasts lurked within it, waiting to choose their prey and devour them.
A figure sat upon the imperial throne at the very top. He looked middle-aged, with cold, stern features, and wore an imperial robe adorned with myriad fiends and a hundred beasts. The aura of a purple mansion peak cultivator of the "Lingsa" path faintly emanated from him.
He was the current Liao Emperor, Xiao Xian, formerly [King Lingming].
Three others stood below.
On the left stood a young man with a tattoo on his neck and handsome features. He wore heavy black-blue armor patterned with sky wolves, and his bearing was extraordinary.
The Emperor Lord's second son, Great Liao's [Prince Lingchi], Xiao Jun.
An abundant manifestation of fire virtue surrounded him, the root of vitality. Yin and yang were balanced, their transformations fully harnessed: it could become pills, artifacts, or spells, and command All Fires. Its spirituality was so profuse that it seemed ready to turn into spirit ghosts and leap forth.
True fire!
Yet what he cultivated was not witchcraft, but true fire, one of the five essences. Even his aura was exceedingly primordial. One glance revealed that he did not follow an immortal school's dharma method, but a more primordial method that treated fire as spirit ghosts.
Beside him stood a somewhat younger man whose cold, knife-sharp features closely resembled Xiao Xian's. His eyes were gray, like a jackal's or wolf's, and he wore a Robe of Law in autumn gold.
Crown Prince of Great Liao, Xiao.
Xiao Xian's eldest son was also a direct blood descendant of the True Lord and highly regarded by that great one. He had just broken through to