“This Protector of the Horses is an ascetic from the mortal world who became an immortal by ascending through merit. His lineage is unknown. Since coming to the Immortal Court he's never been seen to have a single friend come calling. He looks like a lone traveler.”

In no time at all, the Rainbow-Thorn General had gathered more or less all there was to know.

Protector of the Horses was an idle post to begin with. And this one hadn't been promoted by anyone; he had been drawn up to heaven by the merit of heaven and earth, so there was no background to look into. That was why there was so little.

“You suspect he has a grudge with Purple-Caltrop? That he was afraid she'd complain to you once you got back and you'd take revenge on him, so he used her trip to attend the ceremony to pull something in the mortal world and cover his tracks?”

The Rainbow-Thorn General nearly laughed at his own words as he said them.

True, Purple-Caltrop was a deft social operator who seldom made enemies in the Immortal Court, and the only person she could be said to have clashed with lately was this Protector of the Horses.

But the problem was, even if he really had something like that in mind, he'd need the ability to pull it off.

Purple-Caltrop herself was a dragon demon of the sixth-rank Heaven Immortal realm, and she was surely carrying protective treasures the Azure Luan had given her. On top of that, his own lion-tiger beast had once been an Arhat who had plucked a fruit position in the Bodhi Teaching. Even stripped of it now, its powerful demon body, washed clean by that fruit position, was far beyond what any ordinary Heaven Immortal could handle.

Above the Heaven Immortals came the Taiyi immortals.

At that level, every cultivator had a clear line of masters and fellow disciples. The monk may run, but the temple can't. Anyone who dared lay a hand on someone sent down holding an immortal decree would be asking the Immortal…