Before Xu Long could press further, a sudden wave of clamor rippled across the square.
It came not from the august stalls of the founding sects, but from the chaotic sprawl of the outer rings.
"What is that?"
"Impossible—such a thing here?!"
"Move aside! Let me see!"
Even the overseer puppets stirred, their eyes glowing crimson as they prepared to suppress what they assumed was another brawl.
But this was no mere skirmish.
Through the throng, a pale rogue cultivator stood atop a crude stall of tattered cloth. His robes were patched, Yet in his pale hands he held aloft a crystal sphere the size of a fist. Inside it swirled a flame the color of deepest violet, coiling and twisting like a living dragon bound in glass.
Someone gasped aloud.
"Void Lightning Essence!"
The words were like thunder in the ears of every cultivator present.
