Grand Elder Feng Xuan didn’t shout.
He didn’t draw a blade. He raised both arms toward the Heavens, his fingers spread wide. He grabbed the invisible reins of the mountain array.
“Students of Azure Cloud,” Feng Xuan whispered, his voice resonating through every spirit vein on the peak. “Feed your Sovereign.”
*
High above the pagoda, the floating Great Stele of Canonical Truth swelled tenfold.
The black jade turned semi-clear, blazing with a terrifying, blinding crimson light. Thousands of dark golden tendrils lanced downward from the sky, piercing into the chests of the fifteen thousand frozen fighters standing across the White Jade Plaza.
Black harvest glyphs ignited upon their foreheads.
The Grand Elder had abandoned all pretense of a voluntary audit.
