The morning sunlight vanished from the central rostrum in the fraction of a heartbeat.
It didn’t dim like an eclipse or fade like twilight.
A choking, pitch-black dome of solidified nether-shadow erupted from the mortar seams between the white jade pavers, shooting two hundred feet into the air and snapping shut overhead like an iron sarcophagus.
Outside the dome, the hundred thousand spectators gasped in total, horrified panic. The central debate platform had been fully erased from physical sight, replaced by a churning, solid sphere of pitch-black darkness that drank all light, heat, and sound.
On the First Rostrum, Elder Gu threw his head back and laughed with foaming, unhinged glee.
“Die! Die, you terrible peasant!” Gu shrieked, dancing among the fragments of his shattered cooking pot. “The Nether-Void Shadow Severing Formation has burned up him! That dome is an inescapable pocket realm carved from the deep-sea void! No mortal flesh can endure the touch of the Twelve Shadow Reapers!”
“Gu, you madman!” Pavilion Master Ren Qingzi roared from the gallery, his face draining of color. “You brought Heretical Void Shadow killers into the sacred assembly of the Sages! You have betrayed the kingdom against the entire human race!”
Grand Elder Yan roared with blazing bright Great Saint fury.
