The memory of the Great Backstabbing was preserved not in song, but in the unbending exact light of the royal archives.
From the Chancellery Altar behind the water-lily throne, a vast sphere of clear emerald starlight swelled outward, engulfing the sovereign terrace in a panoramic historical projection. The azure vaults of Entry hall 850 seemed to dissolve, replaced by the terrifying, burning vistas of the Second Drowned Epoch ten thousand years in the past.
Qiao Ming stood with his bare feet firmly planted upon the cobalt flags, his rough hands resting upon the star-fallen iron tiller of the scepter. Beside him, Yan Zhiqiu watched the unfolding projection with her breath held in solemn grief, her gloved fingers resting upon the open pages of her master registry.
High above them, Empress Yan Huaisu raised her diamond hand, guiding the flow of light with sovereign sorrow.
“Look upon the fall of the Upper Entry halls,” the Empress spoke, her cello voice echoing through the phantom battlefield. “See what the fighters of the surface called their Glorious Ascension. They called it the triumph of the spirit over matter. In truth, it was merely the butchery of refugees by parasites who had devoured their own sky.”
