Mountains ringed the high terrace on every side.

On a far peak two figures, one tall and one short, quietly watched what lay below.

They wore plain white shirts, unadorned but for a finely worked auspicious-cloud device at the collar.

Any cultivator in Nanhong with an eye in his head would have felt his heart drop at the sight of those shirts.

The Nanhong Seven. The Cloud-Soaring Sect. The shirt of a personally transmitted disciple.

The shorter was a youth with red lips and white teeth, very well-behaved to look at, though rather round in the body, and running a little to comfortable flesh.

His mouth had fallen slightly open as he took in everything that had happened below. "Senior Sister Wei, what was that just now?"

The youth was only at the sixth layer of Return-to-Void. He could have shattered that Crimson-Whisker Blood-Claw Puppet in an instant himself — but never so casually.

"……"

The taller girl's brows drew together, and something puzzled came into her handsome face.

After a moment's thought—

Wei Yuanling let the words out quietly. "Heavenly Reckoning Forty-Nine."

"He's already learned a spirit-method?" The youth's eyes went wide. "I don't remember Senior Brother Wei managing it that fast."

"What are you thinking? The man has scraped his way in at the gate by luck, that's all."

Wei Yuanling glanced at him. "My brother isn't a man just anybody can be measured against."

Even among personally transmitted disciples there were higher and lower.

This junior brother of hers, Li Yu, had not long been a personally transmitted disciple, and his cultivation was naturally a good deal lower; Wei Yuanling herself had raised her palace seven times long since, and broken through to the eighth layer of Return-to-Void.

As for the Senior Brother Wei they both spoke of—

he was the Cloud-Soaring Sect Master's own personally transmitted disciple, a figure of consequence who had ascended the White Jade Capital.

"Senior Sister Wei, we acted on our own authority, and now somebody's dead… we won't get a scolding from Senior Brother when we go back, will we?" Li…