Snowdrifts swirled across the frozen plateau, burying the shattered shards of the colossal Nine-Fold Glacial Array and frosting the pale, desiccated corpses of the thousands of impaled disciples and elders hanging limp from Qing'er's receding shadow spikes.
Down in the lower gully, the seven young disciples of the Mystic Water Sect who had tumbled off the ridge were trapped against a wall of sheer blue ice.
Their daoist robes were torn and stained with soot, their hands shaking so violently that their rapiers clattered against their scabbards.
Behind them lay a bottomless chasm; ahead of them stood a singular, horrifying executioner.
It was Shen Xun'er.
She had materialized in front of them out of thin air, hovering three inches above the snow.
Her robes drifted weightlessly, completely undisturbed by the freezing gale, her purple eyes carrying the unfeeling, clinical detachment of a butcher examining sheep in an abattoir.
