Three days later, outside Yunmeng Prefectural City, dawn had only just broken.
The mist over Cloud Dream Marsh had yet to fully disperse.
The million-li expanse of lakes and marshes resembled a boundless, ancient silver-white mirror, the morning light shattering into billions of golden scales upon the water.
Outside Yunmeng Prefectural City's south gate, this would ordinarily have been the hour when caravans entered the city, official boats docked, and the market wards opened their stalls. Today, however, more than a dozen main roads had been closed off early.
On either side of the gate, the banners of the Cloud Dream Province Yamen, the Immortal Dynasty Posthouse, the Spirit-Suppression Bureau, the Water Patrol Bureau, and the City Defense Army stood in succession.
Several hundred Immortal Dynasty officials in purple- and azure-patterned official robes stood along both sides of the road, their expressions solemn.
Behind them stood a dense crowd of watching cultivators, packed from the city gate all the way to the shore of Yunmeng Lake, a dark sea of people.
At Tie Qingniu's request, no mortal martial artists were allowed nearby today; their presence would lower the tone.
Even the Cloud Dream Province cultivators who usually prided themselves on having seen the world could not help craning their necks today, repeatedly looking toward the southern horizon.
Word had spread the previous night that the Nine Netherworlds Iron Household was coming to welcome an honored guest.
The guest was no ordinary person, but the man most discussed lately before the city's Water Mirror Ranking-the Blood River True Lord, ranked one hundredth on the Heavenly Gang Nascent Soul True Lord Ranking, Demon Lotus Sect Leader Qing Chen.
Many had disbelieved the news when it first spread. After all, he was a new True Lord who had only made the ranking in