Purple threads of spiritual lightning crackled across the rosewood banister of the grand staircase.
Marching down from the third-floor VIP salon were twenty Kunlun enforcement swordsmen in dark blue robes embroidered with golden lightning clouds.
Their hands rested on the hilts of matching azure-iron longswords, their eyes cold, arrogant, and predatory.
Outside the boutique windows, dozens of market merchants and rogue cultivators gathered in the street, whispering in frightened tones.
“Deacon Lei is coming down!” a merchant gasped. “The Iron-Beard Enforcer of Mount Kunlun! Whenever he draws his whip, someone leaves in a wooden coffin!”
Leading the squad was a barrel-chested cultivator with a beard like a stiff wire brush.
He wore heavy dragon-scale chainmail beneath a black sleeveless vest. In his right hand, he coiled a seven-foot whip forged from purple thunder-copper, spitting sparks of raw lightning that scorched the floorboards with every twitch.
This was Enforcement Deacon Lei of Mount Kunlun.
