When the last name had been read, over a thousand faint wisps of true spirit fragments hovered in midair.
Yun Qing was pale. Directing the Heavenly Origin Cauldron to retrieve the true spirits had taken a tremendous toll on his divine soul.
The twelve Immortal Venerables formed hand seals together.
Vast Immortal Power poured down, enveloping those remnant spirits.
The First Elder gently shook the Bronze Bell in his hand, and each of the twelve Immortal Venerables spat out a mouthful of essence blood.
"Bloodline of the Yun Clan, heed my command."
"By our lineage's fortune, we now forge a seal and brand your true spirits!"
"Through life after life, may your souls return to the Yun heavens! When you are reborn, may the bonds of this life be renewed!"
An intricate, densely woven formation emerged from beneath the sacrificial altar, and Yun Clan Seals condensed upon the brows of the true spirits.
As Yun Qing watched, an indescribable ache swelled in his chest.
The Soul-Comforting Ceremony might not truly guarantee that they would return to the Yun Clan someday.
The elders had not said so, but everyone understood it.
True spirits passed through the cycle of rebirth, and heaven's workings were unfathomable. More often than not, bestowing this Yun Seal was merely doing all that human hands could do and leaving the rest to fate-the living refusing to accept their loss, fighting to win one more slender possibility for the dead.
That was precisely what made this scene weigh so heavily.
A towering power like the Yun Clan was willing to call upon twelve Immortal Venerables and draw on the ancestral lands' reserves for its dead juniors, all to gamble on a "perhaps."
In the distance, the sacrificial altar was quietly reflected in Yun Huang's pale gold eyes.
He