NOVPUBJiushan Province.
"Today is truly a good day," Zhao Xian wrote down his full name on the golden contract scroll in front of him, and as a strand of golden light flew into his body and the contract was established, he laughed heartily with joy.
The members of the Five Elders Organization in the store packed up the contract scroll, similarly displaying joyful expressions and voicing their agreement.
For most of the day that followed, Zhao Xian negotiated in even greater detail with representatives from the Five Elders Organization concerning the trade agreement. It wasn’t until he had escorted them to the Cave Mansion in the city for rest that Zhao Xian finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Instead of returning to his own Cave Mansion, he turned around, went back to the store, and entered the Underground Secret Chamber.
Looking at the Faceless Stone Statue hidden in the darkness, Zhao Xian’s expression was complex, and his thoughts were myriad.
Ever since the United Federation of All Realms had been exterminated by the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals and placed on the perpetual kill list, Zhao Xian, as a secret agent of the Federation in Jiushan Province, had been living in constant fear.
Each day his spirit was uneasy, and he would often have hallucinations of the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals coming to his door and suddenly arresting him.
And with the Federation no longer providing supplies, the store’s inventory had suffered a great impact. Customer traffic declined day by day, almost to the point where he couldn’t hold on any longer. In the end, it was only by begging and scraping together all the wealth he had accumulated over the years that he had barely managed to rebuild the supply chain.
"Thankfully, everything is behind me now," Zhao Xian said to himself.
The storm brought by the Federation had settled.
On the days when the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals was most vigilantly hunting, they had not discovered Zhao Xian’s true identity. There shouldn’t be any danger in the future.
Through his painstaking efforts over the years, the business of the store had returned to normal. Recently, he had even reached a business agreement with a commercial group from the Five Elders Organization. Just the fixed trade goods each year were worth up to tens of millions of contribution points.
"Although I no longer have the rewards from True Immortals, just the profits from the store alone are enough to support my Cultivation all the way to the God Transformation Realm," he thought.
"With the Union’s demise, I no longer have to turn over profits and can pocket them all. I’m even living more comfortably than before," Zhao Xian thought, somewhat self-satisfied.
"Indeed, blessings and misfortunes come hand in hand, and the world is unpredictable."
After one last look at the Faceless Stone Statue, Zhao Xian had decided in his heart to permanently seal this Underground Secret Chamber.
The secret that he had once been a member of the United Federation of All Realms would never be known to anyone else.
"The True Immortals are merciful, I believe they would not blame me," Zhao Xian respectfully offered one last salute and then sealed the secret chamber.
Having accomplished all this, Zhao Xian felt a great burden lifted, as if reborn.
But on his way back to the Cave Mansion, as he looked up at the azure sky of the Xuanhuang World, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of unease in his heart, for some reason.
Zhao Xian had always been confident in his intuition, and immediately, his steps faltered.
Carefully reflecting on the recent minutiae of his life, after a long period of thought, Zhao Xian failed to find anything awry.
"Strange…"
The chaotic feelings in his heart grew stronger, and Zhao Xian, sensing something suddenly, looked around at the people nearby.
At a glance, he broke into a cold sweat.
It wasn’t just him.
In the Free Trade City of Jiushan Province, at this moment, every Cultivator leisurely wandering the streets seemed to vaguely sense that something was amiss. Their minds were in turmoil, their expressions tense.
Even worse, some had cold sweat pouring down their foreheads, their footsteps unsteady.
"This…" An image suddenly rose in Zhao Xian’s Spirit Consciousness, of ants moving house just before a heavy rain.
"Could it be that a catastrophe is about to occur?"
Zhao Xian suddenly thought of the origins of Jiushan Trade Province.
Originally, this place was chaotic, with nine states existing side by side, a tangled mess of dragons and snakes. Because of a battle between the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals and the Five Elders Organization, one glance from the Heavenly Venerable Law Phases had flattened mountains into plains.
Only then did the prosperous Jiushan Province of today come into being.
"Could it be, the events of that day are about to unfold again?" With this thought, Zhao Xian shivered uncontrollably.
Although reason told him that neither the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals nor the Five Elders Organization would start a war again in Jiushan Province for the sake of their mutual interests, the anomalies before his eyes convinced him that disaster was sure to strike!
"Escape!"
It was just a moment later that Zhao Xian made his decision.
Indeed, he was avaricious.
He too wished to become a God Transformation Stage cultivator, a force to be reckoned with.
But all of this was predicated on being able to keep his life safe.
With the skills he had honed in Jiushan Province over the years, even if he were to become penniless again, he could rise anew somewhere else.
Moreover, the most valuable items in the store had always been in Zhao Xian’s personal possession.
With this in mind, Zhao Xian immediately changed direction, ignoring the city’s prohibitions, and fled towards the Border of Jiushan Province at high speed.
His abnormal behavior naturally caught the attention of the cultivators in Jiushan City. It triggered a chain reaction, and for no apparent reason, they also began to flee.
It was like the instinctive struggle of wild animals sensing a life-or-death crisis.
And indeed, the cultivators’ premonitions were not wrong.
They had not escaped far when a terrifying fluctuation descended from behind them.
The sky suddenly darkened.
Countless cultivators didn’t even have time to cry out before they were swallowed by some unknown terrifying entity.
Feeling the abrupt disappearance of tens of thousands of life forces behind him, extreme terror took over his brain.
In this moment, his thoughts ran wildly with unprecedented speed.
"A terrible disaster must have befallen Jiushan Province."
"With my strength, it’s obvious that I cannot survive this catastrophe."
