The Dawn of the New World

The ball was continuing on as usual with such liveliness and vitality that anyone that had arrived later would never even consider that a bloody fight had taken place just a few moments ago which could have easily broken out into a full-on brawl.

Hao Xuan was sitting on the left side of the hall near a window with a lit cigarette in his hand, observing the bustling crowd since he had already accomplished his objective for coming over. Across from him was an infant chewing on a chicken bone, some times sucking on it trying to mimic his moves and demeanor.

The royal children, the geniuses from the clans and everyone in between, they were all dancing, drinking and chatting away like this was last time they would be able to do so and for some, it would be.

Guo Min was surrounded by similarly sized individuals, buff and muscular all over. They laughed loudly and slapped each other's backs with such force that it sent minor shockwaves to the immediate surroundings.

Fulke was standing in a corner with several different men. They would occasionally glance towards the feet of the nearby beauties and then speak in hushed voices. Hao Xuan could guess what their topic would be.

Micha kept his distance from Hao Xuan and moved from one group to another. Even though Hao Xuan wasn't looking at him directly, but how could he escape his sight? He was quite impressed by Micha's networking skills. He seemed to know every person by name and knew their likes and dislikes and was well-liked by almost everyone here.

Henrik was surrounded by beautiful women on all sides. Giggling and tittering at his every joke, their fake laughs echoing loudly in the surroundings. A few meters away from them were many young men looking at him with hateful eyes and gritted teeth. Muttering amongst themselves in a cowardly manner.

Even Wu Jin was surrounded by many pasty looking individuals, talking quite animatedly. From their physiques it was quite obvious that they didn't do many physical activities and stayed indoors. They looked like emaciated teens coming out of their basements like hobgoblins in search of food.

Hao Xuan tried eavesdropping on their conversations but soon lost interest as their conversational topics had to do with the different dynamics and types of matter. He couldn't even follow them for a few minutes.

"Pfft, nerds," he scoffed.

"Da," the little boy agreed with a nod that almost made him tip over. His head was a bit too big for his body making it hard for him to stay up.

Hao Xuan looked towards the other side of the hall where a group of cultivators were sitting. They were the only other ones other than Hao Xuan that weren't actively 'mingling'.

One of them was Stasa, one of the guardians for the Hall this time around.

Speaking of guardians, Hao Xuan only found out the meaning of the two vertical lines on the back of his identity token after arriving here. Apparently, he was a guardian as well.

Each moving city of one of the main powers had at least three guardians. These guardians had a lot of power as compared to the normal participants.

The first guardian was to set up duels and oversee the official combat between the three cities.

The third guardian had to protect the city itself and the beast along with overseeing all the participants to make sure there were no traitors, no infighting etc. Basically policing everyone.

The second one who this time around was Hao Xuan, had complete freedom to move around go explore the local world and gather information. This is why Ryfon's master gave him this position so he could find the secrets of this new power the planet had awakened.

Also, none of the other two guardians could force him to do anything because of it.

Under normal circumstances, each participant could not leave the moving city on their own. They not only had to get permission from one of the guardians but also report why they were going out.

And it wasn't like the guardians weren't above the participants themselves, their status just indicated that they had just been officially recognized by their supervising power and were given more authority and special missions to accomplish.

Stasa was the third guardian of the Hall's city which Hao Xuan found out when Henrik shouted out loud that as long as a guardian was nearby, Stasa could not challenge him directly. That's why Hao Xuan was forced to participate in the fight, or rather Stasa attacked him before he could deny the challenge.

Hao Xuan rubbed the sword wound on his abdomen. Even though Stasa didn't use any Qi in his attack, the wound had still not closed completely which totally stumped Hao Xuan. There was something about his attack that he did not understand. It looked like a simple forward slash but there was much more to it.

Was this the difference between realms?

"Sword Realm...huh?" Hao Xuan mumbled with squinted eyes. It was like Stasa could 'feel' his stare from across the hall and slowly turned around to meet Hao Xuan's eyes.

"Da!" seeing the seriousness in Hao Xuan's eyes the little boy waved the chicken bone around in the air threateningly.