The dark rock ceiling of the Grand Hall of Inquisitorial Judgment didn’t break. Instead, the four-hundred-foot stone vault seemed to dissolve into a shimmering expanse of pale violet sky, as if the physical stonework of the mountain had been temporarily suspended by an overwhelming spiritual will. Down through the shimmering rift drifted clouds of pure, pearl-white sky law.
Upon those clouds walked a single figure. He wore robes of coarse, raw, unwhitened hemp. But every fiber of the fabric glowed with the soft, silver soft glow of distant star-patterns. His hair was pure silver, cascading down to his heels like a frozen mountain clouded eye. His eyes held neither pupils nor irises—only two spinning star-sea vortexes of cold, ancient wisdom.
Hall Master Xuan Ji.
The living legend of the Sacred Lands was an 8-Star Peak Grand Saint who had stepped beyond the boundaries of mortal nations five hundred years ago. He walked into deep soul-seclusion in the Celestial Void Vault to understand the final barrier separating mortal flesh from the 9-Star Saint Sovereign realm. For five hundred years, he hadn’t set foot upon the earth. He didn’t walk upon soil. He crossed the surrounding curve of the heavens. He stepped from one intangible cloud-eddy to the next as though climbing an invisible flight of sky marble stairs.
