"We are willing to surrender. We ask only that you, True Lord, look upon the legacy of grace left by the Ancestral Celestial Master, remember Dragon-Tiger Mountain's ten-thousand-year Daoist court and the pure, unworldly realm of the Celestial Master Residence, and still your thunderous wrath. Stay the executioner's axe, spare our lives for now, and let no blood spatter the ancestral altar!"
After a long silence, a plea for surrender came from within the Celestial Master Residence's family temple.
It was Zhang Fawei's voice. Compared with ten years ago, he sounded as though he had aged more than a thousand years.
"Come out and speak."
The Daoist looking down from above gave this command.
Another long silence followed. But silence always came to an end, and a True Lord's patience had its limits too. After some ten or twenty breaths, the great cultivators inside the Marquis of Liu's family temple filed out. The four Immortals led the way, followed by two True Persons and then nine Xuanzai cultivators. All stood solemnly beneath the ancestral hall's lintel, hands clasped in salute.
"Come forward and speak."
The Daoist gave another command.
The fifteen people at the helm of the Celestial Master Residence had no choice but to step forward again, treading through empty air into the sky where the spectators both inside and outside Immortal Mountain could see them. They approached True Lord Cheng, keeping neither too close nor too far away, and stood roughly a head below him.
"State your crimes."
The Daoist offered no polite evasions or pleasantries. The moment the Zhang Family members had settled into place, exposed to every watching eye, he continued issuing commands. As he spoke, he also brought out the Purple Tranquility Unified One Ding so that its spirit could hear them clearly.
Seeing the