The grand council courtyard of the Myriad Spirit Safe hall was usually a place of quiet office grace. Here, beneath the shade of blooming silver-willows, beastfolk envoys from the southern mountains gathered to negotiate seasonal timber quotas, while mortal scholars from the human empires sat cross-legged with ledger brushes, trading notes on communal irrigation networks.
On the afternoon following the cabbage incident, however, the courtyard was transformed into a staging ground of escalating spirit distress.
Arrayed along the outer edge of the courtyard, forty-nine massive brass-and-black glass distress mirrors—crafted by Tie Shan to monitor cross-realm spiritual currents—blazed with violent crimson runes. The red light cast wild, pulsating flickers against the white marble pillars, with a clashing, high-pitched ringing that made the temple cranes in the nearby ponds shriek and take flight in blind panic.
Suddenly, the central spatial portal embedded in the courtyard pavilion groaned under massive air pressure.
The air warped with the sickening screech of twisting dimensions. Spatial ripples tore across the flat stone slabs like spiderwebs of cracked glass, and with a thunderous crack that rattled the tile roofs, three figures tumbled wildly out of the glowing vortex.
They struck the smooth white marble with ungraceful, bone-jarring crashes. It rolled across the stone before coming to a trembling halt near the steps of the central dais.
