Three days later.
The morning bell had yet to ring, and the sky was still an expanse of ashen blue, yet the entire Yun Clan Ancestral Grounds had already awakened.
The Spirit-Guiding Lamps among the ancient, cloud-patterned halls lit one after another. Soft white spirit flames hung at the eaves, arrayed like the stars of the heavens, casting a bleak, cold glow over the jade steps, soaring rooftops, and long bridges. The attendants who normally hurried to and fro all softened their footsteps today, as though afraid of disturbing something.
Between the peaks, the spiritual mist that usually drifted like smoke had been pressed down by a great divine ability, lying heavy around the mountainsides.
Today was the Yun Clan's Spirit-Soothing Ceremony.
At the center of the plaza, which could accommodate a million people, stood a Nine-Tiered Circular Altar. The scent of burning incense lingered in the wind.
North of the altar stood the Yun Clan's Ancestral Shrine.
Crimson gates towered high, bells hanging from the eaves. The dark doors of the hall had not been thrown wide, but left open a sliver, as though waiting for someone to return.
East of the altar hung twelve snow-white banners. No elegies were written upon them, no blood-red characters inscribed; only names embroidered in pale gold spirit thread.
Around the Soul-Calming Banners, twelve figures were already seated.
Twelve Immortal Venerables.
Some had hair white as snow; some looked as young as youths. Some radiated immortal brilliance as vast as the sea; others held their auras deep as an abyss. They did not deliberately release their pressure, yet merely by sitting there, they made the laws of heaven and earth rise and fall with their breathing.
The Yun Clan possessed an ancient legacy and strict rites. Whenever one of its prodigies died fighting