Streams of colored light hung down through the clouds, brilliant and blazing, bathing half the Void Heavens in splendor as though dyed by sunset.
Within the auspicious glow stood nearly a hundred brightly dressed pages and female attendants, solemnly waiting. They had plainly been there for some time.
As for the one at their head,
he was the Daoist who had called out to Chen Heng and introduced himself as Qiao Xi.
He looked about twenty, with a round face like a full moon and a stout, heavy frame. A keen light glimmered in his eyes, marking him as an accomplished cultivator.
His hair was tied in a Daoist topknot, and he wore a dark Fish-Dragon Dao Robe, with a thunder disk at his waist and a magic sword as black as ink strapped to his back.
Chen Heng's gaze paused on the faint lightning mark between his brows. Understanding dawned, and he thought:
So he is a disciple of Thunderclap Manor.
Like the Outer Dao Celestial Persons who had fled here from Brahma Grotto-Heaven, Thunderclap Manor was a tradition that had migrated from another heaven.
Fearing tribulations and calamities, it had signed a pact with the Eight Sects and Six Schools, becoming a shield and barrier for Xudu Heaven.
After countless years, this tradition had grown into the foremost unorthodox school in the Nine Provinces and Four Seas, its prestige even surpassing that of the Fish Tally Dao in neighboring Western Yi Province.
Across the Xudu Heaven Firmament, it counted as a great sect of considerable renown, not to be underestimated!
Chen Heng had learned from Daoist texts that every disciple of Thunderclap Manor bore a lightning mark between the brows.
It was not merely proof of identity, but also a powerful divine ability that could be used to