Chen Shi walked into the temple, where everything remained as it was before, completely undamaged.
Before the main hall, a stone turtle harbored an extraordinary power within, seeming ready to revive at any moment. A stone tablet stood upon its back, carved with the deeds of King Yue during his mortal life.
Beneath the eaves of the grand hall, coiled dragons wound around stone pillars as if descending from the heavens, meandering down into the mortal world via the pillars. Inside the hall, the vaulted ceiling overhead was pieced together from blue porcelain shards, recording the story of King Yue learning his arts in his youth, forging a complete mastery of divine abilities, and working to subdue demons and protect the Way. Next came the tale of the Great Song in peril, the youth resolutely joining the army to form the Beiwei Army, fiercely battling the Iron Pagoda, rescuing the Great Song from desperate peril, and sweeping humiliation away from within enemy territory. Various battle scenes were rendered with vivid realism.
Following that was the episode at Fengbo Pavilion, where the Song emperor arrested him on trumped-up charges, his heroic march to a generous death, and his ultimate enshrinement by the common folk as the pacifier demon Great Emperor of the Three Realms, the nation-protecting demon-subduing and bandit-suppressing Heavenly Lord, commanding the elite troops and divine generals of the nine heavens above and ruling over the guilty ghosts and lost souls of the five prisons below.
He pulled back his gaze and looked toward the divine shrine ahead, which was similarly devoid of a statue and stood completely empty.
Before the shrine lay an iron spear, over two zhang in length and as thick as an arm, resting horizontally in front of the divine shrine.
Despite the passing of more