The brass war horns of Heaven rang through the high-sky ether like the groaning of brass bells beneath an iron hammer.
The sound rolled down from the golden war chariots. It swept across the cloud terraces of the Floating Mountain with choking weight. Below the low roof walls, the ancient pines of the Grand Desolate Spirit Forest bent beneath the dropping pressure. Their needle-laden boughs shook as if anticipating a hurricane. Far across the eastern valleys, mortal herds scattered toward their dens, instinctively recognizing the artificial, metal timbre of sky power.
Aboard the gold-trimmed quarterdeck of the Solar Vanguard, Celestial Envoy Bai Ming adjusted his tall jade coronet with a flick of his silk-draped wrist. The fleeting shudder that had prickled his neck moments earlier—when the fox maiden’s tails ignited with vermilion flame—was already swept away by hundreds of years of cultivated immortal vanity. In his mind, an insect that flared with fire was still an insect. A wild hound that bared its fangs before the butcher’s knife was merely demonstrating its coarse, raw nature.
“Insolent dirt-dwellers,” Bai Ming muttered, his voice cold as river ice. “They mistake our patience for pause. They believe that because Heaven permits them to breathe the lower ether, they have earned the right to look upward.”
