Black iron shingles groaned under the sheer weight of the descending blood-light.
Patriarch Morvane hovered above the rooftop ridge, his gray hair whipping in the violent gale.
His broadsword pulsed with fifty years of concentrated hatred, humming like a swarm of angry hornets.
Down in the cavernous auction hall, ten thousand cultivators scrambled for cover behind carved mahogany pillars and heavy oak partitions.
Even Sect Master Horgath plant-slammed his massive brass staff into the floorboards, barking for his allied disciples to raise their Qi-deflection screens.
“Behold the heritage of the Iron-Spire clan!” Morvane thundered, his voice reverberating off the granite cliffside. “The Heaven-Sunder Blade is no mere mortal sword form! It requires seventy-two cycles of Yin-blood refinement and seven reverse meridian inversions!”
Morvane shifted his back foot, twisting his hips into a theatrical, low crouch.
He raised his left hand, pointing two fingers along the crimson fuller of his broadsword.
