Above the county town.

Jiang Yuanhua gave Shen Yi one long, deep look, then wasted no further time on sentiment — the man had just bought him the most precious thing of all.

Nothing could rival a swing this dramatic, from the depths straight back up to the heights.

This wasn't over yet. He was still Qingzhou's General, and nowhere near the point of laying down the weight on his shoulders and giving up on everything out of spite.

The treasured sword tore through the crimson mist blanketing the sky like a rainbow piercing the sun, racing toward Qingzhou City!

"..."

The Howling Moon Demon King hunched its body, both paws gripping its great crescent blade tight.

The young man before it had an unfamiliar face — it couldn't even put a name to him. Right under its nose, Qingzhou had somehow, without a whisper of warning, acquired a Mixed Origin Grandmaster.

The wolf king suddenly remembered the five demon lords under its command who'd vanished without explanation.

It had guessed that Qingzhou had gained some new, unfathomably skilled warrior, but never once imagined the man would be at the Mixed Origin realm.

The logic was simple enough.

If a Mixed Origin Grandmaster had been stationed here, given Jiang Yuanhua's nature, the two of them would surely have joined forces and marched straight out of Qingzhou to kill it outright.

Not done what he'd just done — abandoning Qingzhou City entirely and throwing himself into a fight-to-the-death stance instead.

Of course, there was an even more important reason.

Even it knew that, in the three-way alliance's stand against the Thousand Demon Den, by the current rotation it should be Great Qian's turn to bear the brunt of it — and any spare Mixed Origin cultivator would surely have been called away by the immortal sects and sent to the most dangerous front.

"The Howling Moon offers its respects."

The old wolf cradled its crescent blade against its chest, claws cupped together in salute, and forced a smile to its lips. "Might I ask the Grandmaster's honored name?"

Offending a Martial…