The morning sun over Mount Apex rose into a sky clearer than polished beryl.
From the four cardinal directions, thousands of glowing spiritual conveyances—sky war barques, soaring cloud-cranes, golden royal carriages, and levitating jade pavilions—came together upon the mountain summit.
Ten thousand Sages, grandmasters, sect patriarchs, and reigning emperors from thirty sovereign empires had gathered at the Apex Forum.
They had felt the land-wide crust heave. They had seen the stars wobble. They had felt the warm, divine pulse of the Great Saint that had locked the fractured planet back into posture.
Now, as they stepped onto the white marble flat stone slabs of the upper forum, they froze in total, religious stupor.
Rumbling up the inclined access ramp from the underground vaults came Shen Shitou.
The young ironworker was whistling a cheerful construction tune, effortlessly pulling the heavy Class-Five high-pressure hand-truck behind him.
Strapped to the steel nose plate with four crossed yellow ratchet straps was the fourteen-ton, solid twenty-four-karat gold statue of Scribe Lord Mo Sha. It shone with blinding, prismatic bright glare under the morning sun!
