A silent wave of golden-white light expanded from Kaelen Vance’s white bathrobe. It swept outward through the subterranean cavern, rose up through the palace foundations, and rolled across the entire Vermilion Imperial Capital.
Unlike the Vermilion God-Emperor’s suffocating furnace aura, Kaelen’s breakthrough to Spirit Domain Peak felt like a warm autumn afternoon settling over the land.
Within a fifty-kilometer radius of his padded wool slippers, the ambient spiritual energy of heaven and earth aligned into peaceful, effortless harmony. His Fallow Sovereign Domain had reached the absolute pinnacle of the Spirit Domain realm.
Along the shattered palace avenues above, cracked stone pillars knit themselves stable in the gentle golden light. High over the capital, the last lingering storm clouds parted. Warm afternoon sunlight bathed the ten million freed citizens standing in the streets.
“Fifty kilometers,” Sera Thorne whispered. She felt the edges of Kaelen’s expanded domain effortlessly encompass the entire capital, the canal locks, and the eastern shipyard basin all at once. “His Spirit Domain Peak field covers the whole metropolitan basin without a ripple of strain.”
“And look at his aura,” Elder Sterling murmured in reverence, resting his hand on his sword pommel. “Not a single speck of Pill-Poison or unstable Qi. It is as deep and calm as an inland sea.”
