Chapter 24: Some courts death...
A reed in the storm, I bowed.
A rock in the river, I drowned.
The wind howled atop Mount Hengduan, ancient and aloof, dragging with it the dirges of the sects.
Beneath a cliff veined with frozen lightning, where cranes no longer nested and peach blossoms bloomed no more, Elder Wang knelt alone.
Snow crusted his beard, blood stained his sleeves.
Around him, the corpses of his disciples and his own son lay like wilted lotus petals, shattered, sprawled, and disrespected.
Above, spiritualcrows with eyes of malice circled thrice, calling not to mourn, but to feast.
Kaw~ Kaw~
They cawed with glee, sensing the end of a lineage.
His heart, once tempered in the fires of pill refinement and sect duties, had been sliced apart like spring grass, perfectly clean, swift, unannounced.
He did not know the blade, he did not know the face. But one thing he knew was the loss.