Blood-red chains of spiritual lightning hummed across the nine dark-iron pillars of the Grand Sword Plaza, pressing down on the white-jade flagstones like a falling sky.
Twelve Mount Qingcheng inner-hall elders leaped onto the stone pillars, channeling their Qi into the [Nine-Palace Sword-Suppression Array]. Gale-force winds whipped across the square, threatening to flip the banquet tables and crush Chu Lingxiao’s shoulders into the floor.
Yet inside the velvet massage throne, Master Lu Jian’s embedded Rank-4 counterweight runes flared gold, absorbing ninety percent of the gravitational load. Chu Lingxiao didn’t even spill her tea.
Up on the obsidian dais, Sect Master Xuanji (Goodness: 11/100) stood beside his throne with a cold, triumphant sneer, picking up a porcelain cup of tribute cloud-mist tea.
“Do not waste your breath struggling, Lin Mo!” Sect Master Xuanji’s voice boomed down from the high steps. “You may be a wealthy tycoon in the mortal cities of Jiangcheng and Yanjing, where worthless paper banknotes can buy skyscrapers. Even tossing out two or three hundred thousand Spirit Stones to bribe witnesses is probably the absolute limit of your mortal company’s blood and sweat!”
Sect Master Xuanji took a slow sip of his tea and gestured grandly across the misty peaks of Mount Qingcheng.
