Taiping County had been anything but peaceful lately.
Unrest had stirred in the nearby Demon Beast Mountains. The beasts seemed to be gathering into a great tide, preparing to sweep down and crush everything in their path.
People frequently went missing throughout the prefecture, with traces of evil fiends behind their disappearances.
Li Yang was a Sword Envoy passing through the area. Faced with such a crisis, he instinctively began searching for traces of the fiends.
He spent two hours making a conspicuous circuit through the skies above Taiping Prefecture. Using his perception of killing intent, he killed dozens of evil fiends ranging from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core.
By searching their souls, he learned that their faction was called the Blood Refinement Sect. Its sect master was an old devil half a step from Nascent Soul who intended to sacrifice Taiping County's million mortals to help him condense a blood nascent soul.
Once he learned this, Li Yang immediately headed to a cultivation lineage in Taiping County.
An ancestor of the Han Household had been a Sword Lord, leaving behind a Sword Talisman to protect the lineage.
When Li Yang came asking for it, they refused. Invoking his status as a Sword Envoy accomplished nothing either-so he decisively brought out the Qianyang Core Sword to threaten them.
"I'm not negotiating with you. I am a Sword Envoy of the Sword Alliance, and I have the authority to order you to cooperate with me at any cost to protect Taiping County. If Taiping County is destroyed, your crimes will warrant death. Rather than let selfish people like you keep wasting resources and harming the common people, I might as well slaughter you now!"
Under Li Yang's "forceful persuasion," the head of the Han Household handed over the Sword Talisman with