One day Before the New Year: Nezin Han, Chief of the Nezin Tribe, had seen a great many things in his sixty five years of life. He had seen the Seven Flame Aurora of the Sea of Snow, painting the skies in all the colours of the rainbow, a tide of light that turned even the darkness of the north to day. He had seen the Millennium Migration: the rivers of Long March Caribou on their eternal, looping odyssey from one end of the continent to the other. He had seen volcanoes that spewed ice, the flashes of light from battling Spirit Beasts in the distance, and had even borne witness to a full-grown Thunderhoof, the titanic creature almost a mirage as it strode, unhurried, through the snow. However, these past two years had revealed to him more than he ever thought possible. First, his grandsons had become cultivators. Then, Yun Ren brought a baby Thunderhoof through their encampment. He met distant kin from the Howling Fang Mountains, hid in the ancient refuge of First Den while cultivators battled demons outside, and then he had flown on a skyship with his kin and their herd of yaks all the way to Hong Yaowu! He was getting too old to have this much excitement in his life… but at the same time, it was invigorating. And Hu Li’s face had been bloody hilarious when the skyship had touched down. Yun Ren had shown him the recorded image, as Han had stayed behind until the last trip. The chief went last, that was the way (...)