"..."
Inner City, Eastern Glory Ward.
Compared with the Outer City, where sewage flowed freely and fish mingled with dragons, spiritual energy wreathed this place, and the streets were paved entirely with neat white jade and blue bricks.
Mortal carriages and horses were barred beyond three checkpoints. Those who walked here were all cultivators dressed in brocade Dharma robes of various colors.
Atop a floating island at the very heart of the marketplace, an imposing blue-black tower rose from the ground.
Sharp little green swords were carved into its eaves, giving off clear sword cries in the wind-this was the Azure Cloud City branch hall of the second-rate Canghai Sword Sect.
At that moment, however, inside the Soul-Pointing Hall behind the main hall, the atmosphere was as oppressive as a cold pool before a storm.
On the heavy bronze racks lining both sides of the hall, over a thousand glass soul lamps and life-bound tablets stood densely arrayed.
They housed wisps of Divine Soul left with the sect by the branch's outer disciples, inner stewards, and True Disciple cultivators.
Ordinarily, the blue lamps flickered, their spiritual radiance interweaving, symbolizing the unshakable majesty of an immortal sect within this mighty city.
Now, however, on a jade platform toward the left of the third tier, a life tablet carved entirely from supreme-grade cold jade had shattered into dozens of charred fragments.
Around the fragments, the Divine Soul flame once nurtured by a Spirit-Gathering Formation had long since died into a deathly gray trace.
Below this True Disciple's life tablet, four refined-bronze life tablets representing disciples had likewise cracked and crumbled, all spirituality gone.
Crack.
The crisp report sounded especially piercing within the hall.
A burly middle-aged man in a gray Daoist robe patterned with gold stood before the jade platform, his expression