Dawn broke over the Apex of Mount Sages with the cold, crystal-clear clarity of freshly split mica.
Suspended thousands of feet above the jagged mountain peaks, nine huge platforms carved from white green jade floated in a broad nested mandala, tethered to the land-wide bedrock by invisible magnetic leylines.
Over one hundred thousand high fighters, empire rulers, sovereign patriarchs, and robed scholars packed the climbing spectator tiers, their hushed murmurs sounding like the hum of a massive spark power yard.
On the First Rostrum stood Elder Gu.
His scarlet mantle was gone, replaced by a nine-dragon royal brocade robe woven from pure golden aurum-silk that caught the morning light in blinding flashes. He had been stripped of his medical medicine room power the last afternoon. Even so, his status as the undisputed political champion of the Ancient Bloodline Faction remained intact.
Gu raised his gold-ringed hands, his voice roaring through amplification magic charms until it shook the morning clouds.
“Sages of the Jiuzhou Continent! Rulers of the Nine Realms!” Elder Gu proclaimed, his chest swelling with high-born fervor. “We stand upon the cliff edge of land-wide ruin! The Heretical Scribes seek to erase our history, yet within our own gates, common laborers and unranked handymen dare question the divine order established by the First Sages!”
