Chapter 170: Spare His Life

Summer, Year 9361 of the Chenxi Calendar.

The drone of cicadas seemed a world away.

The scorching sun hung high in the sky, baking the Eldron Plain like a red-hot iron plate.

Where the wilderness met the hills, a young man stood silently on a ridge, letting the sun beat down on him.

He stood tall and straight as a pine, with broad shoulders and long legs. He wore a dusty, gray hooded robe, its fabric faded from countless washings and its hem caked with dust, giving him the unassuming appearance of a wandering Mercenary who spent his life on the road.

But the two-handed greatsword slung across his back was enough to make anyone who might underestimate him swallow their scorn.

The blade was nearly the height of a grown man, its broad spine glinting with a dark, somber blue under the sun, like the surface of a bottomless pool. It showed no keen edge, yet it exuded a heavy, bone-deep sense of oppression.