Pale Moon World, before the Pale Moon Hall.
Lead-gray clouds hung low, their heavy weight pressing over the entire land.
A howling gale swept yellow sand across cracked, barren mountains and rivers, then over a wilderness where not a blade of grass grew. It carried endless grief and wailing, as though lamenting the suffering this world had endured for decades.
The land had long since been wrung dry and left riddled with wounds. Its Spirit Veins were exhausted, its mineral deposits hollowed out, and even the humblest plants could scarcely survive. The once-vibrant Pale Moon Plane had become a living hell.
And the chief culprit behind it all was Huang Taigu, the Guardian Envoy who occupied the Pale Moon Hall and ruled this plane by appointment of the Through-Ancient Dynasty!
Above the Execution Platform, iron chains stretched across the air. Bone-chilling Black Iron links bit deep into flesh.
The Sect Masters of the Pale Moon Plane's Seven Great Sects, the rulers of its Four Great Dynasties, and the heads of its eighteen Martial Dao Great Houses—twenty-nine leaders of local powers in all—were bound fast to the execution pillars.
Their clothes hung in tatters, their bodies covered in hideous wounds. Blood had soaked through every inch of cloth.
Their wounds had long since festered and rotted, giving off a faint, bloody stench.
Their Martial Dao wills, and even the Martial Dao True Qi they had cultivated for years, were pinned down by a terrifying, ruthless force. They could not move so much as a fraction.
Yet even so, these foremost native experts of Pale Moon kept their tortured, battered backs straight.
Unyielding fury burned in their eyes as they glared at the man on the high platform. Not one lowered his head. Not one submitted.
Pale Moon World had not always