After a while, Aksai made his way toward the inner zone.
The guards there barely glanced at him as the identity token confird his entry once again. The noise of the city faded the mont he stepped inside. The inner zone was calm, neat, and lined with wide streets and quiet courtyards.
Old stone towers stood side by side with new pavilions. High-ranking cultivators moved around with composed expressions. Everything here felt heavier, quieter, and more refined—just like he rembered.
Aksai took a deep breath, letting the mountain air settle in his chest.
It had been a long ti... but White Mountain City still felt the sa in the places that mattered.
He continued walking deeper into the inner zone, ready to see what else had changed—and what still remained untouched by ti.
Aksai was only a few steps away from the Haan Di Pavilion when the quiet street around him changed. It had already been a calm place, far less crowded than the central district... but now it grew completely empty. The few people who had been walking earlier suddenly hurried away. Aksai noticed it right away.
He frowned. Sothing was wrong.
He spread out his Spirit Sense—his full Third Order range—and at once, he felt two groups rushing toward the pavilion from opposite directions. Their movents were fast, sharp, and far too aggressive for such a peaceful inner zone.
Both groups were Spirit cultivators. Both were ard. And both moved with the sa intention. They wanted to claim the Haan Di Pavilion.
Aksai slowed his steps and looked toward the left first. The leader of that group was a man at the 9th level of Foundation Establishnt. His aura was hot and slightly unstable, like he had been pushing his cultivation hard these days. Aksai heard soone in the group shout, "Senior Brother Jaya, they’re close!"
Jaya.
Aksai didn’t know him in person, but the na didn’t matter. What mattered was the person walking beside him.
Sirina.
Aksai recognized her imdiately. She had been the one he dealt with the most in the city more than forty years ago. She looked a bit older now, her aura sharper, but there was no doubt she rembered him too—he felt her gaze sweep past him for half a second before she turned back to her group, saying sothing to a certain soone.
He turned his head to the right.
Another group approached, much stronger. Their steps were steady, and their killing intent was cold and heavy. The man leading them was a Foundation Establishnt Perfection realm cultivator whose aura pressed down like a quiet mountain.
Ren Greenleaf.
This ti, Aksai recognized this man as he had seen him from a distance during his expedition to the Duya Forest. He was the elder that was dispatched by Haan Di state’s administration to quell the unrest in the Wild Devil Lands.
It seed that Ren had grown stronger over the years, entering 9th level of the Foundation Establishnt realm before finally becoming a contender for the position of the Haan Di’s heir.
It also looked like Ren had a stronger montum behind him than Jaya. Soone yelled out, "Senior Brother Ren will end this today."
The pieces ca together quickly in Aksai’s mind. He rembered the rivalry among the Haan Di Lord’s disciples that existed 40 years ago.
Both groups carried the sa faint signature—one he had noticed only a few tis before during his stays in the city. The mark of Moyun Haan Di, the ruler of this neutral state. These were his disciples. All of them.
Aksai exhaled slowly. So it was finally happening.
The long-standing tension he had sensed in the inner zone was not his imagination. The disciples of Lord Moyun had been fighting overtly and covertly for decades, trying to decide who would inherit the position of ruler once he passed.
The man was old, even by Core Formation standards, and his lifespan had been nearly exhausted. Not to ntion the fact that he was recently injured during his attempt to enter the Holy Land Torel. It seed that his entry and exit into the secret realm had not only caused turmoil in the Wild Devil Lands that was the playground of the Three Major Demonic Sects but also inside his own ruled region.
Twenty-five disciples had started this struggle more than forty years ago. But at this point, only two sides remained.
Five had died. Four had already run away. The rest had chosen to stand behind either Jaya or Ren. From the number of footsteps Aksai could sense, every remaining disciple had already taken a side.
And today, the conflict had reached its final stage.
Aksai let out a slow breath.
He had expected so unrest. He had even noticed hints of tension the mont he walked into the inner zone. But he had never imagined that all of it would erupt right when he was about to step into the Haan Di Pavilion.
As both groups ca closer, Aksai stood still in the center of the near-empty street. Dust swirled around his feet as the two forces closed in.
He hadn’t co here to get involved in anyone’s succession struggle. But the battle was coming straight to the pavilion entrance... and he was standing right in the middle.
He turned slightly, preparing to move aside.
The quiet street was no longer quiet at all. The final fight for Haan Di’s new ruler was about to begin. And Aksai had no intention of ddling in such affairs.
He only wanted to see if he could get his hands on a 3rd Order Spirit cultivation technique suitable for him and then leave Haan Di so he could start cultivating peacefully.
After all, Aksai was busy dealing with his own matters back on his island. He didn’t have ti to get involved in the Haan Di Lord’s ss.
But problems don’t disappear just because soone wants them to—especially for Aksai, who already knew Sirina, one of the people involved in this conflict.
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AN: Jaya was introduced in Chapter 185 whereas Ren was introduced in Chapter 319. Sirina had approached Aksai and asked him to beco Haan Di Lord’s in-na disciple to ultimately join Jaya’s faction in Chapter 182.
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