In the Demon Trial Valley, nine hundred feet below the clouds, the decennial assembly had fully dissolved into world-ending pandemonium.
On the central marble platform, Grand Elder Meng was gripping the stone railing with such frantic, bone-crushing force that the ancient white marble had fractured beneath his ringed fingers. His long white beard was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot with blazing bright disbelief. His Core Formation aura was pulsing in uneven, scared spasms that threw off sparks of blue spiritual fire.
Beside him, two dozen sect patriarchs, grandmasters, and punishment elders were screaming at each other. Their voices rose in an ear-splitting loud noise of terror and confusion.
“It’s a demon invasion!” an elder from the Flying Crane Abbey shrieked, clutching his ritual scrip to his chest. “An ancient demon lord has broken through the underground leylines and possessed the trial array! No mortal flesh can climb ninety floors in ten minutes!”
“Look at the scoreboard, you fools!” roared the Sect Master of the Iron Bone Pavilion. He pointed with a trembling broadsword toward the thirty-foot jade monolith. “The names are checked by the Primordial Seal! It’s not a phantom! It’s that land-mapper boy and his iron-toting beast of a laborer!”
