How did this youngling get his hands on such a treasure?
The thought moved through the Peak Master's mind with the weight of genuine bewilderment — the particular confusion of someone who has spent enough time in the world to believe they have catalogued most of its surprises, and has just been proven wrong.
The next moment, his eyes rippled.
It was a subtle thing — barely visible, the kind of change that only another cultivator at a comparable level would have any hope of perceiving. But the space around him responded immediately, trembling as the auras of multiple authorities surged through his frame in quiet, overlapping waves. Ancient power moved through the old man's body the way deep water moves — with enormous force and almost no surface disturbance. The strongest of those authorities rose above the rest, carrying a weight that pressed against the fabric of the surrounding space with an almost intimate familiarity.
Sky-grade authority of fate.
