By the time the mist dispersed, dawn was almost upon them.
Medicine King Valley looked as though it had been turned upside down. More than half the walls of Clear Moon Pavilion had collapsed, and the old locust tree in the courtyard had been uprooted, lying across the ruins.
Several halls at the foot of the main peak had burned to the ground. Thick smoke rose from the shattered walls, twisting into ash-gray pillars in the morning light.
Of the twelve elders, three had died and five were grievously wounded. The remaining four bore injuries of varying severity as well.
When Mu Tianqing came down from the main peak, his steps were unsteady. He stumbled as he landed and would have fallen if a disciple beside him had not caught him.
The disciples had suffered even more grievously. Lu Chen did not know the exact figures, but he alone saw more than a dozen corpses carried out and laid out neatly in the open ground before the main peak.
Some bodies were still intact, though terror remained frozen on their faces. Others had been torn beyond recognition by corpse generals and trampled by Corpse Puppets, impossible to piece back together.
Yun Qingyue found Purple Cloud's body among the dead.
Purple Cloud had been one of Medicine King Valley's elders. He had not spoken much in ordinary times and always wore a stern expression, but he had treated the disciples exceptionally well.
A corpse general's claws had pierced through his chest, leaving a hole the size of a bowl. Its edges were charred black, and there was no blood—at the instant the wound was made, the deathly aura had evaporated it dry. He still gripped a broken sword, with only half a foot of its blade remaining. The other half was