Most of the buildings surrounding the main hall on the Profound Sword Pavilion's rear mountain had been destroyed. Furrows plowed by streaks of astral energy scarred the bluestone paving, and rubble and broken timber littered the ground.
When Yi Yang came up the rubble-strewn slope carrying Xuanyi's head, only the wind and the distant crackle of burning timber remained audible among the halls on the rear mountain.
Fighting still raged elsewhere in the Profound Sword Pavilion, but this battlefield, which had belonged to warriors at true astral realm completion, had fallen silent.
Yi Yang stepped over the threshold.
The hall's interior was little better than the devastation outside.
The altar honoring the Profound Sword Pavilion's ancestral masters had toppled, and shattered tiles and broken beams lay everywhere.
At the foot of the wall to the right of the entrance, Xu Yuhu, the current Head of the Profound Sword Pavilion, lay half-reclining against a fallen stone slab. Someone had roughly wrapped a few strips of cloth around the hole in his chest. Blood had long since soaked through them, and his face was deathly pale, but at least he had survived.
Lu Song, an elder of the Profound Sword Pavilion, sat three feet away from him, bracing his right hand against the ground and clutching his ribs with his left. His breathing came with a leaking hiss. He too had suffered serious injuries while blocking several of Xuanyi's attacks.
But Chief Inspector Lu Quanan, who should have arrived long before, was absent.
Yi Yang swept his gaze around the hall, confirmed there was no third person inside, then approached the two men and set the head on the ground.
A bald scalp, a round face, and a broad brow.
Xuanyi's head rolled half a turn across the bluestone floor before stopping.