"They’ve done it, then," Kian murmured, the words ripped from him by the wind as he plummeted through the mist. The sound of the Sky Cloud Sect’s main gate shattering had not been just an echo; it had been a physical blow, vibrating through the very air, through his bones. The vast, shimmering spiritual barrier, once a beacon of unyielding power, now hung in the distance like shattered glass, flickering into nothingness. The path was indeed open. And the Shadow was coming.
He landed lightly on a narrow, moss-covered ledge, his cloak billowing around him, the aura-obscuring talismans humming faintly beneath his robes. The ground trembled. Not from his landing, but from the unholy cacophony rising from the valley floor. Roars, shrieks, the sickening thud of colossal bodies, and the desperat
