Lizhou, the Implement Sect.

The little town at the foot of the mountain was packed to bursting, most of the faces unfamiliar. Pick out any one of them at random, and you'd sense a faint, forbidding aura leaking off them.

Every last one of the Division's runners had been deployed, straining to keep order. The cloud-patterned black robes that demons and jianghu brawlers alike held in such dread meant nothing to this crowd of strangers.

What truly kept them quiet was the formless divine spirit hanging in the heavens. Invisible to the naked eye, the dense pressure of an upper-tier Martial Immortal had long since blanketed the entire Implement Sect.

"We would like to go up and observe the ceremony."

Cultivators of profound realm gathered at the foot of the mountain, and the Implement Sect disciples received them courteously into the mountain.

Hou Wanshan watched the place in silence.

The stir made by a treasure coming into the world was simply too great. One told ten, ten told a hundred, and in the end everyone knew. Great Qian had no shortage of cultivators traveling through from abroad, and hearing the news, they had all gathered here.

The War Temple of old would have needed only a single word to scatter them. But now... to just barely overawe the crowd, keeping things from breaking into disorder, already counted as a fair outcome. The various powers were too tangled and mixed, Great Qian's decline was becoming plain, and it could no longer afford to offend so many people.

"The Implement Sect has prepared lodgings for you all, but the summit is forbidden ground. We ask that you not trespass upon it."

The Lin couple stood guard on the narrow mountain path, longswords in hand, in their capacity as War Temple disciples. The gathered out-of-town cultivators glanced at the heavens; their thoughts differed, but they nodded all the same. "Our thanks for the Implement Sect's hospitality."

At the summit, dense white mist gathered into cloud, plunging the whole small mountain into the depths of winter. Frost coated the treetops, and a bone-cold wind…