Three hundred unsheathed steel blades flashed in the mountain fog, blocking the third hairpin landing of the Nine-Bend Sword Stairway.
Above the wall of swords, a scrawny elder in crimson inner-sect robes hovered three feet off the stone balustrade on a tarnished brass gourd. He stroked a ratty grey goatee and looked down his nose at the thirty-six floating Golden Rolls-Royce Phantoms.
Inside the lead Phantom, Tie Niu tapped the brake pedal. The thirty-six six-ton sedans glided to a silent stop on their cushions of azure levitation Qi, not a single bumper out of alignment.
Lin Mo rolled down his rear window and glanced up through his [Pure-Heart Eye Lv.3].
A rancid, mud-brown halo with streaks of crimson rot swirled above the old man’s head:
[Target: Third Elder He (Mount Qingcheng Sword Sect — Outer Revenue & Toll Hall)] [Cultivation Realm: Rank 4 Mid (Qi Gathering Level 7)] [Goodness Score: -18/100 (Corrupt Embezzler & Loan Shark)]
Standing two steps behind Third Elder He was a stout middle-aged deacon in blue robes whose halo flickered a sour, anxious grey ([Deacon Liu | Goodness: 22/100]).
“Halt your noisy mortal iron boxes!” Third Elder He barked, amplifying his reedy voice with Qi so it echoed off the damp granite cliffs. “This is the sacred Nine-Bend Sword Stairway of Mount Qingcheng! You already smashed our outer gate tablet—do you think our mountain’s spiritual air is free for mortal lungs to breathe?”
