The noonday sun rose to the center of the sky, casting down blazing light and flame. The sky was half clear, half dark with cloud, like a death burning in fierce fire. And within Cholula's inner city, charred black and vivid red marks could be seen everywhere, along with lifeless corpses of god-descended nobles and noble feathered crowns scattered in the dust and mud.
Tens of thousands of Mexica Warriors poured into the inner city, killing through the night and sweeping away every last bit of resistance. Xolotl wore armor and helm, protected by two hundred armored personal guards, and walked along the broad, deathly silent streets of the inner city toward the towering marvel of the Great Pyramid.
Upon the avenue of heaven, he trod over the bones of god-descended nobles; before the temple, he crossed dust and mud where gold and silver had melted. The king did not glance aside. Step by step, treading on corpses, bones, and blood, passing through gold, silver, and ash, he climbed the nearly sixty-meter-high Great Pyramid of Cholula. Behind him, twenty Jaguar Warriors lowered their heads and carried a newly made wooden coffin, climbing to the top of the pyramid with utmost care.
On the broad summit of the pyramid, flames were still burning. The once breathtakingly beautiful Sanctuary of the Gods had already been more than half burned away. And the majestic statues of the gods had been shattered to pieces. The stone pillars of the pavilion leaned and collapsed, hanging gold, silver, and jewels had fallen all over the ground, and the decorative feathered curtains had burned to ash. In a corner of the sanctuary, dozens of corpses of holy maidens, bearing the marks of the elders' abuse, were piled to one side and thrown one by one into the