Chapter 47: Behind the Curtain
Among the thousand Paths, none were as reviled as the Sky-Biter’s.
When the Spiral Dancer awakened mankind to the secrets and wonders of cultivation, she showed them all the Way; but not all Paths were as kind as her own. Some were paved with pain and blood.
Few of the people who had witnessed the Unmaking lingered among the living, but their tales of terror survived to this day; stories of great teeth spanning the length of the sky and closing upon mountains to drink the oceans and swallow continents. A single bit that unmade the world.
The Sky-Biter’s table scraps still orbited around the planet as spinning rings of stone and ice. The Fanged Coast itself earned its name because one look at the map showed the outline of an immense tooth.
Obviously, his followers inspired loathing in the wasteland that their Wayfinder had created. No respectable settlement would tolerate a Sin-Eater cultivator among them, and most lynched them on sight. They were a miserable lot forced to hide in the most forgotten corners of the earth.
Yuan’s hand had grabbed his revolver the moment his eyes identified the sect’s symbol. Lady Tama’s cap immediately covered his barrel before he could shoot the Sin-Eater in the head.
“No violence, no no no!” Lady Tama stomped the ground with a hiss that rippled through the air. “No!”
An earthquake shook the entire station, its walls creaking and its ground trembling beneath Yuan’s feet. A few of his armed followers collapsed and tripped behind him, though his aim remained steady.
“Peace,” the so-called Mordiggian said, his palm raised in appeasement. “I have no quarrel with you and seek none.”