Hugh Evans suddenly pressed her vivid lips against him, her mouth full of hot breath and suppressed, fragmented moans: “I can’t have your scent on me, or your jealous father will kill you.” Her body arched upward, pushing a soft, pale mound of flesh into Barton’s wide-open mouth, feeling his agile tongue flick and tease, her head and neck arching back as she drew in thin, trembling breaths...

　　...

　　At the very moment the Kui Wolf Star shifted, Tanner Stone was accompanying The Lord in the Hall of Serene Night, playing chess for amusement. For an instant, the radiance of the Kui Wolf Star even outshone the blazing sun.

　　The drowsy The Lord couldn’t help but glance over at this anomaly, squinting as he looked up at the dazzling light in the sky, then turned to Tanner Stone with a hint of confusion and asked, “Royal brother, is that the position of the Kui Wolf Star?”

　　Tanner Sterling, after the battle at the Abyssal River, seemed to have exhausted all his energy and ambition. For the past sixteen years, his only interest had been nightly conquests of the women in the imperial palace. In the twenty-one years before he ascended to the throne as The Lord, his consorts bore him only five children; but in the sixteen years since, as he entered old age, they had given him twenty-six more.

　　Now, he wasn’t even sure of the Kui Wolf Star’s position.

　　Tanner Stone too had grown up in this grand and imposing imperial palace, though his mother was of humble birth. To avoid becoming a needless casualty in the struggle for the imperial succession, Tanner Stone had converted to the Maha Orthodox Faith at sixteen, cultivating the Great Luminous Sect’s arts.

　　All his brothers had been killed or exiled by Tanner Sterling; only Tanner Stone had always enjoyed his trust.

　　Tanner Sterling said in surprise, “You once said, royal brother, that among those on the Celestial Register, only Brian Sutton matches the Kui Wolf Star’s fate. He’s doing just fine in Yan Yun—who could have provoked his wrath?”

　　Tanner Stone replied, “The imperial capital is thousands of miles from Yan Yun. The Kui Wolf Star’s radiance may not be related to Lord Lawson.”

　　“Lord Lawson?” Tanner Sterling snorted coldly. “My Lord Lawson, and yet at this very moment he’s hiding away in Yan Yun. He suspects the Pontiff deceived him—does he think I would deceive him as well?”

　　“His Highness Minghe is not yet of age and has no power of his own; the The Sutton Family also has such traditions...”

　　Tanner Sterling waved his hand dismissively.

　　Tanner Stone withdrew from the Hall of Serene Grace and headed straight for the Star Altar, only to find Samuel Evans waiting at the foot of the ninety-nine stone steps.

　　“Our Lord Lawson is usually extremely cautious, yet this time, when exiled to Yan Yun, he had the Wu clan send eighteen bronze war chariots to escort him across thousands of miles. He didn’t lose the dignity of a minister of state, but he seems to have forgotten he’s still under censure. I think our Lord Lawson may not be content with mere caution.”

　　Samuel Evans, Minister of the Privy Council. Though Brian Sutton held the position of Lawson, he was not Samuel Evans’s deputy; the two usually handled their own affairs.

Volume One

Chapter One: King of Wild Beasts

　　Jason Ford was the most important border city in the empire’s southwest. Although the route from the heartland of Yan Yun to Jason Ford was treacherous, the Qilan and Canaan eastern border was guarded by the even more formidable Junheng mountain range. The hundred-li-wide, four-hundred-li-long narrow plain between Ford Hill and the central Jun mountains thus became the most crucial passage connecting southwest Qilan and Canaan.

　　Gregory Eric left the academy, not heading directly to Jason Ford, abandoning the road he and Gregory Clark often traveled, and instead followed the Yan Yun mountains northward, choosing a perilous path for three months of cultivation.

　　Gregory Eric lay atop a massive boulder, gazing out over a desolate, lonely landscape of jagged, dark brown rocks and blade-like ridges. From here, he could see the northwestern peaks rising sharply, their summits snow-capped year-round, the mountains steep and shaped like cones, their silvery brilliance piercing through the overlapping ridges. There, among the Helan peaks, were the sources of many rivers.

　　A thousand years ago, the Yan Yun mountains blocked the fierce winds on the Black Gravel Plain, preventing them from blowing east. The glacial meltwaters of the Helan peaks flowed down to become the headwaters of the Chubu and Yiyun rivers.

　　Legend had it that among the Helan peaks stood a magnificent arched ice dam, trapping the source waters of the Chubu River within the mountains and forming the Helan Heavenly Lake.

　　It was also said that the homeland of the divine-descended Xi people—the Thunder Plains—was hidden among the northwestern mountains of Yan Yun.

　　Gregory Eric gazed up at the gradually darkening sky, tall grasses brushing at his side. The sky was clear, the stars bright, light clouds drifting by. Gregory Eric quietly listened to the silence of heaven and earth, his mind becoming clear and tranquil, his consciousness calm and unruffled, slowly expanding outward, letting his spiritual sense spread through the world around him, as if breathing in rhythm with all things. He didn’t know how much time had passed; just as Gregory Eric was about to forget his own existence, the elemental forces drifting through the world began to flow like water toward the origin of his thoughts.

　　When cultivating martial arts, Gregory Eric absorbed the chaotic vital energy of heaven and earth, refining it into dan power stored within his body. Now, following the guidance of the incantation, at the origin of his thoughts, the gathered elemental force appeared in the sea of Eric’s consciousness like a raging black flame.

　　Chaotic elemental force. The primal force of elemental fire.

　　What gathered around Gregory Eric’s body, bound and held by his will, was chaotic elemental force.

　　The foundation of the Maha Orthodox Faith’s five-element secret arts was the power of the five elements. The five-element secret arts were performed by focusing the mind and chanting incantations, gathering the elemental forces of heaven and earth.

　　The vital energy of heaven and earth and elemental force were, in fact, the same kind of power: the astral force drifting through the world.