The two streaks of white light shot from the Small Vermilion Gourd arrived in an instant, omnipresent. They reached the forbidden formations shrouding the palace city, then treated the layers upon layers of great formations as though they weren't there and pierced straight through. The spreading killing intent bogged down the pale golden barrier as if it were mired in mud, slowing it to a crawl and exposing countless flaws that should never have existed.
The protections around the secret hall where Gao Lan was in seclusion fared no better. They had no way to stop the two streaks of white light from descending. Their radiance lit the room's darkness and suffused it with cold, merciless slaughter.
Gao Lan sat high upon the imperial throne, eyes closed, a ring of golden lamps slowly fading around him. The aura of tribulation drifted about his body. He seemed entirely unaware of the changes outside, helpless to do anything but await his fate.
The "Twin Stars That Shone Across the World" had been famous for many years, always spoken of together as paragons of the age's heroes and ambitious overlords. Now, it seemed, one of them was about to prevail.
Just then, a figure abruptly appeared from the shadows beside the imperial throne. He wore a golden robe and had his hair tied up in a Daoist topknot.
With a wave of his hand, he unfurled a scroll that radiated an aura unchanged since time immemorial. It seemed capable of suppressing the age and sustaining an entire era.
The scroll depicted a black-and-white yin-yang fish, their heads and tails entwined. It embodied both the state of heaven and earth before creation, when chaos had yet to divide into yin and yang, and the Dao's passage from beginning to end, from nothingness to existence.