Where a middle-stage Heaven Realm great demon had fallen, Xuanyue City soon lay under a blanket of white snow.

Yin Qizhang stared out in a daze.

Splash.

On the somewhat battered surface of the water, the broken floes slowly melted. The jade waves rolled up again and lapped gently against the land, and heaven and earth had sound once more.

And between the blue sky and the jade sea, the tall, slender young man lowered his hand. The savage gold-veined black saber turned into a streak of light and vanished into his ink-dark robe.

The clouds that had filled the heavens returned to the sky as his sleeves stirred.

If a moment ago, wherever Sect Master Shen stood, the ten thousand li behind him had been safe from every evil—

now it felt as though all the waters and lands of Nanhong changed with his very breath. He no longer merely guarded the Nanyang treasured site's dependents. He had become the one sheltering all of vast Nanhong.

Still a little dazed, Yin Qizhang came down before the crowd and, with all those equally stunned cultivators, bowed deeply toward him.

Before reverence that came from the hearts of so many living beings, even Deng Xiangjun kept quiet for a while.

“Whoa!”

A moment later he darted over to Shen Yi in a tearing hurry. First he looked the young man up and down with wide eyes, swallowing again and again, with no idea what to say. After a good long while he finally managed, “Sect Master Shen, could I borrow your Dao token?”

The upheaval across the sky wasn't only visible from Xuanyue City. The seven sects of Nanhong would be under it too.

His brothers would surely sense what had happened.

But Deng Xiangjun simply wanted to let it out—to let others know what he'd just seen. Otherwise, digesting this shock all by himself would have driven him mad.

“……” Shen Yi looked at the red-faced Senior Deng and didn't refuse. He took out his Dao token and handed it over.

Letting the sect know about the change early would…