At the summit of Mount Tai, on Divine Pillar Peak.
Wind and rain swept through the gloom beneath a darkened sky.
A female Daoist walked slowly out of a weathered green shrine. She looked like a young girl, with an azure bird perched on her shoulder and a wooden sword hanging at her waist. Utterly perfected sky thunder energy circulated around her, gradually stilling the wind and rain.
[Azure Dawn Shrine]
Bimo glanced at the shrine. The scattered traces of pure divine resonance within had been exhausted, and she knew it was time to end her seclusion.
This shrine had once been True Lord Qingxu's secluded retreat. Imbued with clear qi, it greatly benefited sky thunder.
Six ritual altars stood across the peaks atop Mount Tai, dedicated in turn to the land and grain, wind and thunder, and water and fire. They held nearly thirty-six hundred divine seats, great and small, honoring successive True Lords from the Upper Firmament to Eastern Radiance, all the way back to the earliest Lesser Yang Lord-[Dao Hua], also known as the Wood Duke or the Eastern King.
"Eastern Radiance..."
Bimo's gaze grew intent, and she murmured the name. Anyone who witnessed such a glorious history would fall into a reverie.
In those days, Eastern Radiance had thrown its doors wide open and spread its Dao teachings far and wide. Countless people had come to study, including many Golden Core True Lords seeking instruction, all desperately hoping for a chance to enter the Eastern Radiance Dao Lineage.
Now, however, it had declined into utter desolation. Even the Upper Firmament dared not openly speak of its connection to Eastern Radiance.
A slit abruptly opened in the Great Void ahead. Wind and thunder drifted through it, and a man stepped out.
His features were refined, his bearing