The first scroll's contents unfolded like a fractured mirror—distorted reflections of truth amid rumors.
Kun Peng City's fall had sent ripples through Frostfell's power structures, destabilizing trade routes and fracturing alliances. Minor clans scrambled to claim its abandoned territories, only to clash with rogue paragons emboldened by the chaos. Liang skimmed these details; territorial squabbles were fleeting, irrelevant to his goals.
The Earth Life Paragon's return, however, gave him pause. Once a middling figure mocked for his "primitive" cultivation arts, the man now styled himself a Divine Paragon and founded the Great Paradise Sect in Frostfell's western wilds. Tales described opulent jade palaces rising from barren ice, disciples wielding flora-based techniques in a land of eternal frost.
But then came the account that made his blood still.
