The shadows clinging to the vaulted ceiling of the royal bedchamber began to boil like black tar over a forge.
Grand Teacher Mo Wuji slowly rose from his woven prayer mat, the stone-hard corpse-root staff in his bony hands pulsing with violent, sickly crimson light. A low, grinding rattle echoed from deep inside his ribs, sounding like thousands of dry beetle back shells rubbing against each other in the choking dark of an underground tomb.
“You think you can save him?” Mo Wuji hissed, his voice splitting into a dissonant chorus of many scraping tones that shook uncomfortably in the teeth of everyone present. “You think a round lump of blue jelly and an old washed-up drunkard can halt the grand ascension of the Netherworld Worm Queen?! For two hundred years, the Golden Sun Empire has grown fat, arrogant, and complacent behind its massive granite walls! This entire dynasty is nothing more than an incubator!”
Crown Prince Zhao Lie stood rigid. His hands shook as he stared at the man who had been his tutor since childhood. “Mo Wuji... You raised me! You taught me the annals of statecraft! You guided my sword forms in the royal armory! Was all of it a lie?!”
