The night was deep and still.

It was an unremarkable, nameless hilltop, yet it sat right on the border between Xihong and Beihong.

At that moment an old man leaning on a cane stood at its edge, gazing calmly into the distance.

It was plainly a low hill, and the old man, withered and hunched, looked small himself, yet just by standing there quietly he gave off a towering grandeur, like someone looking down on the mortal world and calmly watching its storms play out.

“The East Dragon Palace was invited by the West Dragon King to look into the matter of the Myriad Demon Hall. We ask for Senior Lü's understanding.”

Behind the old man, Ziyang bowed with his hands cupped. He looked unhurried, but his tightly clenched hands and sweat-soaked palms gave away just how grave this Crown Prince of the East Palace, a cultivator at Heaven Realm Perfection, felt right now.

He still remembered how, a hundred thousand years ago, when Lü Xiao's sect held only seven treasured sites, Lü Xiao had still needed to return Ziyang's courtesies politely whenever they met.

But in a very short time, the Boundless Dao-Sovereign Sect had used the kalpa of slaughter to leap up into a colossus on par with the North Dragon Palace and the East Dragon Palace, and the man in front of him had stepped into the Dao Realm. Nothing was the same after that.

Meeting again now, their standing had long since been turned upside down.

“……” The old man didn't answer. He turned around unhurriedly to look, his eyes giving away neither pleasure nor anger.

Under those eyes, Crown Prince Ziyang's body sank sharply. Only by biting down hard on the tip of his tongue did he steady his spirit-soul. The blood essence surged all through him, and at last he straightened up again, but he was already drenched in sweat from head to toe.

He knit his brows tight and didn't give half a step.

This was what Shen Yi had traded the East Dragon Palace two dragon seals for. Lü Xiao coming in…