Fang Yuan shot toward the eastern ravine, his expression dark.
One step carried him across the sky, and in the next breath he arrived, only to be greeted by devastation.
Most of the cultivation caves lay in ruins, their stone walls collapsed in heaps of rubble.
Disciples of the Fang family sprawled lifeless on the blood-soaked ground, their robes torn and charred.
At the center of the carnage stood four intruders. Each bore a pair of wings jutting from their backs, feathers glinting with a metallic sheen.
Their chests were bare, every one of them marked with the same inked sigil: a coiled dragon, Yinglong, etched in black across their hearts.
One of them dangled a child high in the air. Fang Yuan's gaze landed on the kid, Niyun.
The winged man studied the boy for a long moment, then shook his head in disdain.
"tsk.. You're not the one we seek. Die."
His hand rose to strike the boy, but the strike never landed.
