Unknown Astral Date, year 2021 local date. Lesser plane with no qi - Earth or Blue Planet.

In the depths of a forest, a tall man looking to be in his mid-twenties was standing before a strange multicolor one-foot tall tree sapling. His breathing was rough, his clothes and hair were messy, with strands of dirt and foliage all over them. But his expression was ecstatic, as he had found something unexpected but sought for dozens of years.

Looking at the sapling, he said, amid sudden laughter

"I never expected that this plane would start connecting to the Astral Road so quickly."

The man sat on the ground and touched the sapling. A strange, blinding, multicolor light was released and after a moment, there were no signs of the man or the sapling anywhere, on the spot where the sapling grew only a small mound remained as if something was burrowed under the ground.

At the same time, a small, white ball of light appeared in the void over this plane. Nearby a vein-like, transparent and thin, not more than three feet of width stream, was seemingly flowing into the plane. The stream was composed of a strange substance that looked like a mix of multicolored light, water, mist, and minuscule crystals.

After some time, the white light floated closer to the stream, and when it was almost touching the stream, it began to quickly move away from the plane, as if there were an invisible, opposing stream from the opposite direction.

After a distance, that was about one hundred times larger than the size of the plane from which the white light started moving, the stream connected to a bigger one, that was easily ten times wider.

The white light stopped, as if the path ended, slowly floating closer to the bigger stream, and again started moving opposite the direction of the flow of the wider stream. After an unknown time, it reached the origin of this stream, as well.

The second stream originated from an enormous river, almost the width of the Blue Planet plane. Reaching here, the white light stopped for a long time, as if deciding which way to go, before finally following the direction of the river.

While moving along the river flow, the speed was quicker than before, countless small and big streams started from this river, but, after a brief stop, the light ignored all of them, and its path continued to follow the river.

Sometime later, the white light was moving towards a plane by following one of the big streams that originated from the river it was moving alongside before. This stream width was about ninety feet. When nearing the plane, the ball entered the stream and disappeared.

Year eighty from the Islands War end, Minor Astral Plane - Seven Islands.

The sky above the Half Island.

On the clear blue sky, which was lightly clad in some white clouds at a distance, lightning flashed, and after it dissipated, a small ball of light was left floating in the air.

The ball of light, after some minutes, started transforming and took a shape resembling that of a human, of which no details of his clothing or face were discernible. Even so, the strange light silhouette, although being almost transparent, looked and acted as it was alive. It made some movements, resembling stretching with all the extremities, and slowly started floating down from the sky.

Reaching the height of then thousand or so feet from the ground, the silhouette stopped, as if looking, and slowly started turning around, as if looking at the landscape and deciding where to go. And indeed, after looking at the barren land below that extended for thousands of miles, a distant sea to the west and north and the snowed and unpassable peaks that were seen in the east, it started floating to the south, to the direction of a something resembling a sinkhole or cliff, extending from a small hill on the seacoast and ending only at the base of the eastern mountains.

When the silhouette arrived at the sky above the cliff, it slowed down. The view from this point was different from the barren land before. From the cliff strangely smooth and black wall that was about two thousand feet tall, after a one hundred barren and smooth ground covered in black rock that looked like a horizontal continuation of the cliff, a green, full of life territory started. The ground was covered in green grass and small trees, small forests and lakes were doting the land, it was like it had moved from a desolate land of death into a paradise of life and indeed, even a normal person could see some birds flying and some unknown beasts moving.

But no birds flew higher than the cliff wall height, and no beast neared this boundary of life and death.

After some time the figure sped up again and continued moving south as if looking for something. It only slowed down when it reached a natural wall formed by dozens of small and big hills, that practically blocked any passage further to the south. A hill that did not reach even a thousand feet, could not stop someone from flying over, but for normal people, this was a natural barrier that could be crossed only in some specific place. Surprisingly, the figure started moving to the west, to a place that looked like a slash in the hill chain, like if it had found what it searched for.

A group of people numbering not more than thirty were sitting down on the road of the hill pass and looking at a standing man.

Everyone in the group was dressed in brown robes and pants, their chests and extremities were covered with leather armor and protectors. The standing person was clad in the same clothes, but had a metal heart protector that slightly shimmered under the sun rays.

Everyone was armed with different types of martial weaponry, including bows, spears, swords, and axes.

The standing man had an enormous double ax strapped to his back.

This person, that looked like the leader of the group, was plain-faced, but tall and burly. At this moment, the man started talking in a quick-paced style that one could understand was used to commanding and not answering questions

"So, everyone arrived, good. We have to eliminate the father and son of the Shu family, their servants, and the disciple that the Sect sent to escort them. They will pass through here in a few hours, and we need to make it look like the work of Wildings" After saying this, the man raised his hand and continued

"Don't forget to imitate those wild bastards, so no looting, and after killing put an animal tooth on the top of each body" He slowly put down his hand and continued in a stern tone

"Take care of recovering any of your weapons, don't use qi techniques, and don't forget to double-check that everyone is dead"

"Understood" everyone present responded.

"You are to follow orders, but don't forget that if you fail them, it will be worse than just receiving a scolding. Dismissed!" Said the man and then with rapid movements most of the group left the road and hid in the rocks, trees, and shrubs around the pass. Three people armed with bows and the leader remained on the road with no intention to hide.

Unknown to the people just standing there, a transparent silhouette was floating some feet over them and seemed to attentively listen to everything.