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The Surging Azure Continent grew into a great turbulence over the course of a hundred nights.

During the first ten days, it had been rather calm throughout the continent. The usual conflicts of the Righteous Sects with the Profane continued, the tensions between kingdoms and clans, and those between sects persisted.

However, be that as it may, even with many dying daily even to the mystical beasts of the wilderness, this was their usual calm. It was only natural that there was constant tension, and as much as they suffered because of it, they thrived by it.

But within the Clear Sky Lotus Sect, during the first five days, there had especially been a clattering uproar through the sect.

There were tens of thousands of disciples in the sect, and by the second morning, all of them, from the core to the outer disciples, knew of how the newly promoted Core Disciple Chu Xuan had been set to be punished with ten thousand public lashings.

And through that, they also learned that Meng Jue, his co-conspirator, had been subjected to the same, and worse, with four months in the Gorge after his many lashings.

The reason why they had been punished clamoured amongst them all. Upon learning that they had falsely accused Ouyang Qianye, the former second-ranked core disciple, of profanity, everyone—largely outer disciples and inner disciples—went to see what became of him.

To find that he, as well as his maid servant, had strangely disappeared, and even authorities of the sect, no matter the means that they used, could not find them, intensified this tumult.

For the authorities of the sect, more than Ouyang Qianye, they cared about the half-elven servant that he possessed!

Their race was far too rare to find even half-bloods of, for them to have organised anything less than the search parties that they had to find them!

However, ultimately, these efforts only lasted those five days. And this time had been coincidentally just as all ten thousand lashes had been delivered.

From the sixth night of their disappearance, the nights grew hours longer and the days, shorter by the hours the night stole, and all cultivators could feel it. They could feel that growing stir, the enlivening of the Qi, and the spiritual essence of the world, the prana.

The agitations of prana across a wide area, and in as extreme cases as now, across a continent had always been the impending sign of an extremely high-grade mystical herb, a high-grade artifact, that was close to being born.

If not those—and this was in the rarest of cases—it happened for the birth of individuals blessed with heaven-defying talents.

What were a mere half-elf and a crippled disciple worth in the face of these three potential outcomes?

Everyone on the continent that understood the implications—sects, kingdoms, clans, secret orders, hidden monsters, and independent cultivators—all began their preparations and their searches through mystical means, physical and even, by those who such an opportunity would turn the lives around of, many desperate measures like awakening their Deathheld ancestors.

After all, while the treasure or individual might not have ripened or been born yet, it was certainly possible to find it.

However, that was far easier said than done.

As the moons and nights devoured the sun and its days, the forces of the largest orthodox sects, the kingdoms, and the clans and independent cultivators combed through the continent.

The intensity of the phenomenon grew rapidly. Raining storms would be born out of nothing. Shivering snows would fall thereafter, and tempests of wind would blow hard.

Mystical Beasts migrated in droves, and by consequence, the urgencies of the continent’s powers shifted from their searches onto the protection of their lands.

By the ninety-ninth night, the Surging Azure continent seemed to have braved the greatest intensities of the heavenly phenomenon’s calamities.

And they had all come to realize that it was not possible for individuals, through self-centred efforts, to find the source of the phenomenon.

Thus, on the hundredth evening of the Calamity of Countless Nights, a historic gathering was called.

The five largest sects, the Gilded Crimson Crane, the Clear Sky Lotus, the Jade Gorge, the Veiled Moon, and the Still Willow, as well as the five kingdoms of Chong, Sheng, Xi, Lang and Hu, had decided to join forces in their searches.

Something that caused continent-wide influence of this scale would, in any one of their possessions, shift the power dynamics wildly.

Heaven forbid it was found instead by a sentient beast or a wandering cultivator, or worse, an outsider.

It was better it be in the hands of an enemy they knew of.

And it had been convened even despite that every one of them knew that as soon as either found the source, the others would turn into slobbering wolves, gnawing through the closest alleged ally.

Nevertheless, at the very least, when they did finally gather, everyone was civilised enough not to bare their fangs immediately.

The meeting wasn’t held in any sect or kingdom. None of the isolated clans were used either. The most unassuming mountain was chosen as the meeting place.

Thus, upon the flattened top of a nameless mountain, the greatest figures of the Surging Azure Continent gathered around a wide, wooden table, below the moons and stars.

The Chong King, Chong Tianwei, was the first of them all to speak.

"Then, my friends, let us not waste either of our time. Discussing each of our roles should be imperative."

Sheng Zhongyi, the Sheng King, had a calm expression; from where he sat, he faced Chong Tianwei, and there were flickers of contempt in his gaze.

"To use friendship as a descriptor," Sheng Zhongyi laughed harshly though briefly, "How rich you must think we are with foolishness!"

A number of the gazes shifted from the sect masters to the other kingdom leaders.

Then the Gilded Crimson Crane Sect Master, Fang Yunhe, released a cold, dryly amused chuckle.

"If we were not here on the basis of friendship, would your borders against the Ashen Dusk have gone so peaceful? Moreover, I wonder whether you would have been so loud without Still Willow’s aid against your beast tides at the same time."

The air that had always been somewhat laden with their pressures tightened further, as if a giant’s grip were beginning to close harder around the air of the flat peak.

"Mind yourself, Fang Yunhe," Wen Zhaoguang, the Clear Sky Lotus Sect master, his whitened brows furrowing as he spoke with his voice mild enough that it served as a good enough warning without being aggressive. "This is not the place for ancient ambitions to hinder your judgements."

"And yet," Shen Jiuyan, the Jade Gorge Sect Master, the youngest of them all, seated a few seats away from Wen Zhaoguang, said, "is that not why everyone is here?"

A silence dragged through them all there.

The season, although it should have been summer, was a cold, dark night that shivered through the air at an audible tone to them.

It was the sound of the agitated prana.

"The distribution upon discovery should be the most urgent discussion then," Peng Qinghe, the Still Willow Sect Master, broke through the silence.

And the tension in the air thinned, making the sound of the stirring prana that much louder in their ears.

Shen Jiuyan, the Jade Gorge Sect Master, smiled casually.

"Yes, that would be the most pressing matter to address. What if amongst our forces a disciple or a king’s soldier finds it? I would assume, were it anyone else not amongst us that does, they would be killed immediately. However, what of those between us?"

The Gilded Crimson Crane Sect Master, Fang Yunhe’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his finger tapped over his armrest.

"If the source is an object, it is to be sealed and brought before this gathering. Its distribution or usage can be discussed once it is in our possession. Conjecture before that is meaningless."

"..."

"And if it is a person?"

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