Just as he had during his last Investiture of Inner Gods, Li Qingxian arranged the altar table, set out the ritual implements, chanted the Song of Pacing the Void, and finally recited aloud the Deity-Inviting Incantation for the Investiture of Inner Gods.
"When heaven and earth had yet to be divided, when the clear and turbid had only just parted, form emerged from primordial chaos, and the Primordial Heavenly Emperor appeared..."
Li Qingxian felt his divine sense drift hazily as he raised his head toward the heights above.
High in the sky, dazzling stairways of white clouds rose layer upon layer. Armored guards stood upon every tier of those cloud stairs.
The lower ranks wore bronze armor, raising winged flying-tiger bronze shields in their left hands and holding divine steel spears in their right.
The middle ranks wore silver armor, holding Taotie silver shields in their left hands and tasseled divine spears in their right.
The upper ranks wore thick golden armor that covered their entire bodies, revealing only their eyes. Light blazed around them as they held ceremonial axes and battle-axes.
At the highest level stood three guards.
Flying maidens stood at either side, dressed in colorful robes. White gauze ribbons curled around their lotus-white arms and drifted gently behind them. They held pale green banana-leaf fans at an angle, from which shot ten thousand zhang of radiant light.
The figure in the middle had heroic brows and a powerful build, clad in golden armor. He held aloft a black wooden pole patterned with clouds, atop which was a bright yellow canopy embroidered with ten dragons, like a great umbrella and yet like a tent, spread high overhead.
Unlike the guards below, these three were like Li Qingxian's previous Inner Gods, each with a circular halo floating behind their