Meanwhile, beyond ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers.
After half a month of quiet recuperation, the youth returning from bloody battles made his way toward the Imperial Capital, step by step.
But at that moment, Klin Royal City was already thick with the tension of an approaching storm.
In the deepest reaches of the imperial palace stood the forbidden Profound Heaven Hall.
It was the heart of the entire royal city, protected by the strictest wards and blessed with the greatest fortune. Throughout the year, it remained cut off from the clamor outside, forbidding all prying and probing.
Yet today, the vast hall was deathly silent.
An oppressive, heavy, despairing atmosphere sealed the entire hall like eternally frozen earth. It even stretched across the thousand-mile Imperial Capital, weighing down the air throughout the city until it almost ceased to move.
Only three figures stood quietly inside the hall. None spoke, but each carried heavy concerns.
The old man standing on the left was none other than the pillar of the Klan Empire-Grand Duke Kelin.
He wore an antique, plain-colored brocade robe, his white hair falling over his shoulders. His weathered face was stern and resolute, and his eyes held the steadiness and stubbornness of decades spent protecting the nation.
A faint, solid Lowgod pressure radiated around him. It was neither sharp nor domineering, yet it resembled a mountain rooted in the earth, unmoving for ten thousand years.
He was a veteran Lowgod whose family had guarded the Kelan imperial household for generations, the empire's oldest and most loyal pillar.
On the other side of the hall, an enormous beast had drawn in its vast draconic body and stood quietly in human form.
Faint frost-covered dragon scales covered its body. Its eyes were as cold as an ancient icy abyss,