I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Three hundred miles away, in Qingzhou Prefecture.

Deep within a massive, somber, and dilapidated government office.

This is the headquarters of the Demon Suppression Division of Qingzhou Prefecture. But now, the training ground, which should have been patrolled by thousands of demon suppressors, is only occupied by a few dozen wounded soldiers.

The imperial court's orders have been in disarray for more than half a year. Military pay and elixirs have been cut off, and evil spirits are rampant throughout Qingzhou. This once powerful and violent institution, which once dominated the entire province, is now more like a leaky boat teetering on the brink of collapse in a storm.

Inside the extremely dark archives, Shen Yanqiu, the commander of the remnants of the Demon Suppression Division, was using a ghostly green soul lamp to peruse the urgent reports of requests for help that were flying in from all over the country like snowflakes.

He wore a faded crimson military officer's robe, with deep lines etched between his brows, and his temples were already gray.

"Click".

From the depths of the silent attic, a very faint strange sound suddenly came.

Shen Yanqiu suddenly raised his head and appeared instantly in front of a row of dusty wooden shelves in the far corner, as if his figure had shrunk to an inch.

That was a row of old case files that the Demon Suppression Division had classified as "absolutely deadly".

At this moment, the glaring cinnabar seal that was originally used to suppress evil spirits on the dust-covered bamboo slips of "The Night Crying Demon Case in Huai'an County" was visibly fading into a lifeless, deathly gray.

Shen Yanqiu's pupils contracted slightly. He immediately turned around, pushed open a heavy iron door next to him, and strode into the shrine where the remnants of his fallen comrades were enshrined.

At the very top of the ancestral hall are several blank memorial tablets without names—these are the names of comrades whose names were forcibly erased in order to break the rules.

The moment Shen Yanqiu stepped into the ancestral hall.

With a sharp "crack," the largest, blank memorial tablet in the center split open, a straight crack appearing from top to bottom. Deep within the crack, half of a blood-red character, suppressed for three years, faintly seeped out:

"land……"

Shen Yanqiu stared intently at the word, his rough hands clenching tightly, so tightly that he didn't even notice his nails digging into his flesh.

"The seal has been broken... the karma in Huai'an County has dissipated..."

The demon-suppressing commander, who had spent half his life battling through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, did not feel any surprise at first, but rather an extreme sense of vigilance that shot straight from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

Even Lu Chen, the centurion who was once known as the best formation master in Qingzhou, couldn't kill the "Crying Goddess" even after sacrificing his own life, but she was actually wiped out?

Who did it?

What other force within Qingzhou possesses such terrifying methods?

"Prepare the horses." Shen Yanqiu turned around, his voice echoing in the empty ancestral hall, carrying an undeniable chilling authority. "Select four black-clad guards to accompany me to Huai'an County. Keep the news a secret."

……

Two days later, in Huai'an County.

Five magnificent horses from the Demon Suppression Division silently trod on the bluestone slabs of the county town.

Shen Yanqiu, dressed in a plain gray cloak without any markings, led four elite men, walking slowly down the street with his horse. His gaze, sharp as a hawk's, swept over the county town he had been forced to abandon three years ago.

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The chilling, resentful aura that had seeped into the bones in the air had indeed dissipated completely.

In the few paper money shops at the corner of the city, the shop assistants were idly swatting flies, and piles of yellow paper had accumulated to the rooftops. On the originally lifeless streets, a few apprentices carrying medicine baskets began to walk briskly, and at the city gate, there was even a faint sense of order as people lined up to receive their rations.

"Commander, I've gone to check." A young demon-suppressing envoy with two swords at his waist quietly returned to Shen Yanqiu's side and reported in a low voice, "The branch office in the west of the city has been disturbed. But strangely, the office was not forcibly destroyed. Instead, the remnants of the formation left by Lord Lu back then were 'stitched' back together using some extremely skillful method. There is an extremely hidden and unfamiliar aura remaining inside."

"Sew together the remnants of the Sealed Name Array?" Shen Yanqiu's eye twitched. What terrifying mastery of array formations and control over the rules would that require?

"Also, a new medicine shed has been built in the south of the city. The doctor there is a young female doctor." The young demon-suppressing envoy continued, "I secretly observed her for a while. The prescriptions she uses are all made with the cheapest local herbs, but the heat control and the steadiness of her acupuncture... are unlike those of an ordinary itinerant doctor. She has managed to pull back those who were on the verge of death from the invasion of yin energy into their lungs."

A master of formations, a divine healer, and a hidden force that unknowingly restores order to the city.

Shen Yanqiu raised his head and looked at a newly opened branch called "Changfeng Trading Company" at the end of the street. He sneered, "A bunch of outsiders, thinking they can take advantage of our Demon Suppression Division's inability to care about this remote and impoverished place, trying to usurp our territory?"

"Let's go and meet these outcasts."

……

The backyard of Changfeng Trading Company, inside a room that temporarily serves as a meeting hall.

Han Zhao, dressed in coarse cloth, was looking at the simplified map of the surrounding trade routes handed to him by Meng Changlu. Xu Chenzhou leaned against the doorpost, clutching his old iron sword, while Xie Wujiu sat in the deepest shadow.

After the realm suppression decreased by one level, they were able to steadily maintain their aura at the peak of the Qi Refining stage. Although they still could not use high-level spells, this gave them more confidence when facing local forces.

"Captain, we've got some spies sneaking in. Five of them, full of energy, and they have a faint aura of demonic blood on them." Xu Chenzhou turned his head slightly, listening to the commotion outside the door.

"Please come in." Han Zhao didn't even lift his eyelids.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the wooden door to the backyard was pushed open with extreme force.

Shen Yanqiu strode into the courtyard with four sword guards, his murderous aura, nurtured amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, pressing down on Han Zhao and the others without any attempt to conceal it.

"A merchant caravan from out of state?" Shen Yanqiu waved his gray cloak and sat down at the stone table in the center of the courtyard with a flourish. His gaze swept over Han Zhao like lightning. "Doing business in Qingzhou, you don't even know the rules of paying respects to local leaders? Do you think you can just come and go as you please at that government office in the west of the city?"

The young sword guard who accompanied Shen Yanqiu was clearly losing his composure. For the past three years, the Demon Suppression Division had been frustrated in Qingzhou, and now, seeing a group of unknown outsiders daring to encroach on the land where their fallen comrades had died, he was instantly enraged.

"Commander, why waste words with them! Tampering with the Demon Suppression Division's sealing array is a capital offense. Take them back to the yamen prison for interrogation!"

The young swordsman suddenly drew his long sword from his waist, the blue bricks beneath his feet shattering as he pounced on Han Zhao like a cheetah, the blade whistling through the air as it aimed directly at Han Zhao's shoulder!

Han Zhao remained seated, without moving an inch.

"Clang!"

A piercing metallic explosion resounded in the courtyard.

The young swordsman's pupils contracted sharply. His sure-fire strike was blocked by a rusty old iron sword just three feet away from Han Zhao.

Xu Chenzhou had appeared in front of Han Zhao without anyone noticing. He simply flicked his wrist with the purest sword energy and power exertion technique of a peak Qi Refining stage cultivator.

An extremely concentrated force of recoil surged along the blade. The young swordsman grunted, his entire body being forced back five steps by this not-so-large but extremely resilient force, his tiger's mouth split open, and his long sword nearly slipping from his grasp.

"Step back!"

Shen Yanqiu shouted sharply, his eyes fixed on Xu Chenzhou.

A true expert's skill is immediately apparent. Xu Chenzhou's sword strike just now seemed ordinary, even lacking in extra fanfare, yet the timing, angle, and finishing move were terrifyingly precise. It wasn't a move built on brute force, but rather an instinct honed through countless life-or-death battles.

This group of people didn't show their true strength at all.

Shen Yanqiu's gaze passed over Xu Chenzhou and landed on Xie Wujiu in the shadows.

He could sense the extremely cold, yin energy emanating from Xie Wujiu. It was a power originating from the same source as ghosts and spirits, but strangely, this power also carried an extremely strict sense of law and order, without any trace of the chaos and stench of evil.

"Such exquisite swordsmanship." Shen Yanqiu sneered. "You are no ordinary guards. Speak, who are you? What are your plans in Huai'an County?"

Meng Changlu stepped forward, fanning himself with a paper fan, and smoothed things over in fluent local dialect: "Sir, you've misunderstood. We are indeed merchants, but we encountered some trouble on the road, and my brothers have practiced some self-defense techniques. As for that abandoned government office in the west of the city, we just saw it was deserted and borrowed a place to take shelter from the rain. If we have offended you, sir, we apologize..."

"No need to beat around the bush."

Han Zhao interrupted Meng Changlu. He knew that in a chaotic world like the First Realm, being too low-key would only be seen as weakness.

Han Zhao stood up and walked to the stone table. He calmly took something out of his pocket and threw it on the stone table in front of Shen Yanqiu with a "thud".

That was a tattered waist tag engraved with the words "Lu Chen".

And a yellow talisman containing an extremely faint "fragment of fame".

The moment Shen Yanqiu saw the half-broken waist tag, his face, which always seemed as cold and ruthless as iron, completely crumbled.

His calloused hands trembled violently as he grabbed the waist tag, his thumb rubbing the blood-soaked characters on it.

"Lu Chen..." Shen Yanqiu's eyes instantly filled with blood, and a suppressed growl, like that of a wounded beast, escaped his throat, "That bastard... that bastard..."

The atmosphere in the courtyard instantly froze.

Shen Yanqiu took several deep breaths, forcibly suppressing the emotions that were on the verge of spiraling out of control. He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Han Zhao: "You... really killed that thing? What... what were his last words?"

"He said, 'She's not a name,'" Han Zhao replied calmly.

Shen Yanqiu closed her eyes, and two streams of tears flowed down the scar at the corner of her eye.

"Back then... he didn't desert his post." Shen Yanqiu's voice was terribly hoarse. "A 'Black Blood Demon Catastrophe' broke out in Qingzhou Prefecture, sweeping across half of the prefecture. The General Headquarters issued a death order that all demon-suppressing envoys from the surrounding counties must return to the prefectural city at all costs. We were forced to sacrifice pawns to save the king and abandoned Huai'an County."

"It was Lu Chen... He defied orders and stayed behind. He said that if this thing escaped, Qingzhou would be completely finished." Shen Yanqiu opened his eyes, gritting his teeth tightly. "He used his own life to nail that monster to this dead city."

"For the past three years, Huai'an County has been a knife stuck in the hearts of all the remnants of our Demon Suppression Division."

Hearing this cruel story, Han Zhao and Meng Changlu exchanged a glance. The local Demon Suppression Bureau wasn't as rotten as they had imagined.

"We've already pulled the knife out for you."

Han Zhao pulled out a chair and sat opposite Shen Yanqiu, forcefully cutting to the chase: "My lord, who we are is not important. What is important is that we can kill those things that you cannot suppress. And we need to walk openly and honestly in this world."

Han Zhao offered a very practical bargaining chip: "We can help the remnants of the Demon Suppression Bureau clean up those rule-related malpractices in Qingzhou, like the Weeping Goddess. But in exchange, we need the Demon Suppression Bureau to provide an absolutely clean local legal identity, a map of the distribution of demons throughout Qingzhou, old case files, and... a way to enter Qingzhou Prefecture City."

Shen Yanqiu stared intently at Han Zhao, as if trying to see through the deepest secret in his eyes.

He knew perfectly well that this group of people of unknown origin were definitely plotting something outrageous, and leading them into Qingzhou Prefecture would be tantamount to inviting wolves into the house. But in this desperate situation where demons roamed and the imperial court was nearly paralyzed, the Demon Suppression Division had long since lost the right to be picky about its allies.

After a long silence.

Shen Yanqiu carefully put Lu Chen's waist token close to her body and slowly stood up.

"I won't ask about your origins. If you can truly wipe out all those filthy things on the Qingzhou land that we can't kill... the remnants of the Demon Suppression Division can lead the way for you."

After saying that, Shen Yanqiu took out an urgent report stained with fresh blood from his pocket and slammed it heavily on the stone table.

"This is an urgent battle report from three days ago. If you want to prove your worth, take a look at this first."

Han Zhao glanced down and his gaze instantly sharpened.

The urgent report was extremely brief, yet it carried a chilling eeriness:

Outside Qingzhou City, three hundred elite soldiers from the Northern Banner Camp of the Demon Suppression Division disappeared without a trace for three consecutive nights in the thick fog. Meanwhile, a large-scale bizarre incident of "living people falling upside down" occurred at the chaotic graveyard north of the city, suggesting a possible resurgence of the supernatural...

"Huai'an County isn't even an appetizer." Shen Yanqiu turned around and strode out of the courtyard, his gray back revealing endless weariness and desolation.

"Come to Qingzhou Prefecture, the real battlefield is there."