The sight of Hall Master Xuan Ji kneeling upon the dark rock floor with his forehead against Frank’s boot was not merely a shock. It was an ideological extinction event.
For three thousand years, the entire hierarchical structure of the Sacred Lands had rested upon a rock-steady premise. That the ancient masters were divine, that the ancestors were infallible. That high-tier training was an esoteric art accessible only to high-born bloodlines who spent hundreds of years thinking about spirit mysteries. Now, their five-hundred-year-old living god was weeping with joy on the floor. That was because a mortal carpenter had explained that his soul was suffering from deferred upkeep and clogged chimney pipes.
Grand Elder Yan Gu stood atop the shattered remains of his judgment podium, his eyes dilated until only a thin rim of bloodshot white remained around his pupils. A high-pitched, whistling noise escaped through his clenched teeth.
“No...” Yan Gu whispered, his voice shaking with a hum of pure denial. “No. No. NO!”
Beside him, Elder Mo Cheng’s face was twisted into a hideous rictus of horror. He grabbed his head with both hands as his scorched scalp split open with fresh blood. “The Hall Master has been corrupted!” Mo Cheng shrieked, his voice bouncing off the vaulted ceiling like a wounded bat. “The demonic entity has cast a mind-bending illusion over Supreme Elder Xuan Ji! He has bewitched our guardian with foul foreign sorcery!”
