A deafening roar of fury erupted across the mountain terraces as thousands of disciples witnessed the writhing, icy black mist consuming Elder Mane’s blade.
On the high overlooks of Frost Peak and Iron Crest, senior instructors abandoned their tea tables, and patrol officers drew their steel in disbelief, their shouts rolling across the gorge like thunder. To practice the covert bloodlines of the Shadow Peak Sect while holding a seat on the Disciplinary Council was the highest form of treason against the ancestral mountain. There was no defense to offer, no administrative loophole to exploit, and no ancestral decree that could erase the sight of foreign corruption displayed under the morning sun.
Mane heard the cries of the watching disciples, and the sound shattered what remained of his
