The iron litter groaned as four sweating sanitarium attendants set it down upon the granite flat stone slabs.
Lying upon the cold iron frame was Grand Elder Yan, one of the three surviving Great Saints of the last epoch.
Or rather, what remained of him.
From the crown of his skull down to the tips of his silk-wrapped boots, ninety-nine percent of Grand Elder Yan’s body had ceased to look like living human flesh.
It had transformed into a glossy, light-absorbing sheet of solid black glass ink-stone.
His chest didn’t rise. His breath was entirely nonexistent. Deep within his main neck blood vessel, a faint, painful pulse flickered once every three minutes. The desperate death-rattle of a frozen Golden Core fighting to keep its owner’s soul tethered to the mortal plane.
Elder Gu stepped beside the litter, sneering down at the stone-hard body before turning a mocking glare toward Frank.
“See, Grandmaster Lu!” Gu proclaimed, his voice echoing across the courtyard. “Grand Elder Yan has guarded the Sages’ Sanctum for eight hundred years! He tried to suppress the main ink fissure in the Underground Archives with his bare hands. This was the price!”
