The golden war chariot hovered fifty paces above the scorched terrace, its bronze keel shimmering with man-made solar warmth that kept the mountain breeze from cooling the stone.
Envoy Bai Ming looked down upon the gathered safe hall leaders, resting both palms atop his ivory scepter. A thin, satisfied smirk curled across his lips. In his experience across twelve subjugated mortal realms, mortal defiance was a brittle shell. Once lower beings understood the sheer arithmetic of sky power—once they saw the balance sheet of their own insignificance—the boastful martial pride always cracked.
“You speak of bread and rain as if they were cosmic entitlements,” Bai Ming said. His voice drifted downward with the smooth, oily rhythm of a seasoned court bureaucrat. “Allow me to enlighten your country ignorance on the practical mechanics of your continued existence.”
He raised two fingers. The sky adjutant standing beside the chariot’s compass array unrolled a smaller scroll of silver silk. It projected a three-space-folding golden lattice over the Floating Mountain.
The projection displayed the geographical contour of the entire Azure Cloud Realm. The soaring mountain chains, the vast river basins, the fertile central plains, and the underground veins of glowing azure energy that pulsed like living arteries beneath the soil.
