At the same moment.
At the Black Fox Royal Court.
A Barbarian Infant priest draped in a gray-white fox-fur cloak strode into the royal tent, holding aloft an intelligence jade slip that had just arrived.
"Reporting to the Great King: Yanmen Pass's northern gate has opened."
"Northwestern Circuit-Surveying Governor Qing Chen is personally leading the Cangming, Bloodedge, and Thunderrun armies north, totaling 1.2 million Dao Soldiers. Their target is very likely Yin River City on our southern border."
There was a slight note of panic in the priest's voice.
Outside the tent, the bitter northern wind swept up snow, yet inside it was as warm as spring. Wisps of smoke rose to the dome, coalescing into a gigantic black fox howling up at the moon.
Though called a royal tent, this place actually covered a span of more than ten li, far beyond comparison with an ordinary felt tent.
A hundred pitch-black bone pillars supported the dome, each taken from a fourth-tier demon beast.
The Black Fox King sat above them.
He was not burly, and wore only a jet-black fox-fur cloak whose grade could not be discerned. His hands rested flat before his knees, his face hidden in the shadows cast by the furnace fire.
The dozen or so Barbarian Infant and Immortal Realm generals in the royal tent had been exchanging toasts. Now, not one dared speak.
Qing Chen!
The Black Fox Royal Court was no stranger to that name.
Thirty years ago, this man had been nothing more than a wedge Great Jin had driven into the Northwestern Circuit, with late-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, wavering loyalties among his subordinates, and powerful enemies prowling on every side.
Though the Black Fox King Tribe had suffered devastating losses to the Northern Border Furnace Battle Technique back then, they