The inner sanctum was a living nightmare. The sky—if it could still be called such—bled crimson, stretched taut with streaks of black cloud that churned endlessly across the expanse. It offered no light, only a dull pressure, as if heaven itself bore down in contempt.
Below, the crystal waters of the sacred springs had soured into pools of pungent red, their surfaces curdled like rot simmering under a false sun. The once-verdant trees—silent sentinels of an age gone by—now stood bent and broken, their bark sloughing off in patches, leaves turned a diseased grey.
Li Wei's gaze roved over the defiled landscape, his expression unreadable. Yet beneath that placid mask brewed contempt.
The hills that once nurtured jade-laced grasses and wind-kissed moss now jutted like fractured teeth from the earth, their slopes carved with grotesque visages. Crude faces—screaming, weeping, grinning with too many teeth—etched into stone by hands not born of this realm.
