Star-Magnetic Peak, the Heavenly South Star Palace's Headquarters Altar.
The enormous "Star Palace" plaque, once suspended high in the heavens as a symbol of supreme glory, was now shrouded in a gloom that refused to dissipate. Inside and outside the mountain gates, spiritual light had dimmed, and the air reeked of blood, medicinal herbs, and despair.
Battered flying boats landed crookedly in the square before the mountain gates, their decks packed with wounded soldiers swathed in bandages, their auras feeble. The surviving cultivators silently carried their comrades' corpses ashore. Bodies covered in white cloth, some missing limbs, were brought down one after another and piled into mountains beside the enormous burial pits hastily dug at the foot of the mountain. Stifled sobs, agonized groans, and the numb murmurs of those who had lost family and comrades intertwined into a dirge of defeat.
Leaning on a broken sword, Lu Yun stood on the ruined Parade Platform, his armor shattered, his face smeared with blood, and his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle. His gaze swept over the fewer than forty thousand battered troops below, then traveled farther-to the elite forces of the Three Halls brought from the Chaotic Star Sea, who had likewise lost more than half their numbers, and the hundred-odd warriors remaining from the Wind Wolf Tribe. Finally, it settled on the great banner bearing the character for "Heaven," still flying high despite the several gashes astral winds had torn through it.
Nangong Wan's moon-white palace robes were stained with dust and dark-red blood. She was directing the surviving formation masters of the Earth Division and the Pill Masters of the Yellow Division, doing everything she could to keep the Mountain-Guarding Grand Formation running and treat the endless stream of gravely wounded soldiers. Her expression was exhausted, yet