138: Operation Night

High above the city, the night wind grew stronger, whipping Situ Jun's green robes into a snapping frenzy, like a solitary flag in the dark night.

He stood with his hands behind his back, overlooking the city that lay prostrate in the darkness beneath his feet.

The lights of ten thousand homes were sparse; most areas had sunk into a deathly silent darkness, with only a few wealthy households still flickering with scattered starlight.

His gaze was sharp as a hawk's, piercing through the heavy night curtain to land precisely on several seemingly ordinary corners of Northern Border City—including the Wang Family of Wang Xuanyang and others.

These were families that had already been thoroughly investigated, those who habitually feigned compliance with the City Lord's Manor while harming the interests of the Northern Border. The collapse of the Zhao Family was like a massive boulder thrown into a lake; the ripples were only just beginning to spread.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed slightly.

His vision swept over the rows upon rows of rooftops, casting toward the southwest direction outside the city.

That area was a region of rolling hills, near a desolate ancient road leading to the Zhou Dynasty.

At this moment, on a level imperceptible to ordinary people, several extremely subtle yet clearly Evil Qi-laden and cold fluctuations of Spiritual Qi rippled out abruptly, like stones cast into still water. Though weak and fleeting, they did not escape his keen spiritual sense.

“Xuan Yin Sect...”

Situ Jun ground those three words silently between his teeth, his gaze instantly turning cold as a blade's edge, a sliver of icy killing intent flashing in the depths of his eyes.

Almost simultaneously, another completely different fluctuation of Spiritual Qi erupted suddenly in the area near the Official Post House in the east of the city!

That Spiritual Qi was pure and sharp, carrying a sense of grand righteousness yet deliberately restrained sharpness, like a prized sword hidden in its scabbard.

At this moment, this sharp aura was like a startled venomous snake, suddenly rearing its head with obvious vigilance and a trace of... barely perceptible panic, confronting those few cold, evil auras from the southwest for a brief instant!

That aura, carrying a hint of iron-blooded discipline within its sharpness... it was the Dynasty's Shadow Guard!

Situ Jun's brow arched slightly, and the cold curve of his lips deepened with a hint of mockery.

“Your Majesty... it seems you are quite uneasy about my Northern Border.”

He whispered, his voice scattering into the wind.

The Shadow Guard, the most secret ears, eyes, and blades of the sovereign Li Xuan, were tasked with monitoring the four directions and eradicating the disloyal.

Their appearance in the east of Northern Border City now was clearly no coincidence.

Who were they monitoring? Was it him, Situ Jun? Or... those rats from the Xuan Yin Sect? Or perhaps both?

In the east and the southwest, two completely different yet equally ill-intentioned forces had suddenly encountered each other in the dark night of the Northern Border due to the upheaval of the Zhao Family.

The probing of the Xuan Yin Sect and the vigilance of the Shadow Guard involved no words or physical contact; it was merely a collision on the level of spiritual sense, and both sides promptly withdrew.

Like a startled tide, they suddenly restrained themselves, went into hiding, and quickly dissipated into the vast night, as if that brief contact just now had been a mere hallucination.

Situ Jun remained standing high in the air, the night wind blowing his sleeves until they snapped.

His deep gaze swept over the darkness of the southwestern hills, then over the direction of the Official Post House in the east, and finally settled back on the city beneath his feet.

He slowly raised his right hand, his five fingers long and his knuckles well-defined.

His fingertip tapped lightly against the cold air.

A rune, invisible to the naked eye and as thin as a gossamer thread, quietly seeped from his fingertip like a living spirit snake.

This rune was neither for attack nor defense; it condensed a wisp of Situ Jun's incredibly pure Divine Sense and Spiritual Qi, emitting an extremely faint yet exceptionally stubborn aura of a tracking mark.

The rune silently merged into the boundless darkness below, its target clear—pointing directly toward the area of the Official Post House in the east, the place where the Shadow Guard had just retracted their aura!

Having done all this, Situ Jun's figure faded and vanished silently high in the air like a ghost, as if he had never appeared... Deep within the Official Post House in the east, inside a seemingly ordinary guest room.

The candlelight was shielded by thick curtains, making the light dim.

A figure completely wrapped in black night-walking attire sat quietly cross-legged on the bed, like a stone statue merged into the shadows.

His face was covered with a black cloth, revealing only a pair of eyes as sharp as a hawk's. At this moment, those eyes were filled with solemnity and a lingering trace of shock.

“My Lord?”

Beside him, another Shadow Guard in similar attire with a slightly weaker aura asked in a low whisper, his voice kept extremely quiet.

The man in black addressed as "My Lord" slowly raised his hand, signaling for silence.

He then closed his eyes to concentrate, carefully sensing every movement of the surrounding air and every fluctuation of Spiritual Qi.

The momentary collision with that cold, evil aura from the southwest just now had set off alarm bells in his heart.

People from the Xuan Yin Sect had also appeared in Northern Border City; these waters were even muddier than His Majesty had anticipated!

What made his heart skip a beat even more was that at the very instant the two auras clashed—when his mind was distracted and his aura instinctively leaked—he felt as if an extremely subtle yet incomparably heavy gaze, like a cold blade's edge, had swept across from the highest reaches of the sky!

That gaze... carried a kind of indifference that looked down upon all living beings and saw through everything.

Though it was only for a moment, it caused a layer of cold sweat to instantly break out on his back, as if he had been locked onto by a prehistoric behemoth.

Was it an illusion? Or... he had only felt this sensation once before, from the "Pillar of the State" of the Tianqi Dynasty, the only Nascent Soul Stage Old Ancestor of the Li Family.

The Shadow Guard leader snapped his eyes open, his sharp gaze scanning every corner of the room, even activating a secret technique to inspect himself.

There was no abnormal Spiritual Qi attached to him, nor was there the feeling of being watched.

It was as if that cold gaze just now really was just an illusion born of his high state of tension.

“Send word back to the capital,”

The Shadow Guard leader's voice was cold and urgent, carrying an unquestionable command:

“Shadow One and Shadow Two are missing; the Family forces in the Northern Border are being purged. The Xuan Yin Sect's forces are still in the Northern Border with unknown objectives. Situ Jun's... strength is unfathomable, far exceeding estimates! A suspected Golden Core Stage powerhouse exists. Awaiting Your Majesty's decision!”

“Yes!”

The subordinate Shadow Guard immediately took the order, pulling a specially made jade talisman covered in runes from his robe and beginning to imprint the information using a secret technique.

The Shadow Guard leader closed his eyes again, attempting to calm his churning thoughts.

However, a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of unease, like a maggot in the bone, quietly coiled around his heart.

He felt as though he had overlooked something extremely important.

Just as he was feeling restless, that rune mark left by Situ Jun—as thin as gossamer and almost merging with the darkness—silently penetrated the simple warning array outside the room and, like a wisp of blue smoke, attached itself to an inconspicuous Shadow Guard.

The mark flickered slightly and then completely vanished, with not a trace of its aura leaking out.

The night in the Northern Border grew even deeper.

Zhu Changpo led his troops, continuing to purge the "rebel" families of Northern Border City, aiming to sever the manipulation of external forces and return a stable living environment to the people of Northern Border City.