The deep, metallic resonance of the final tournament bells had long since ceased, but the heavy architecture of the Tian Family Ancestral Palace felt more suffocating than ever before.
Inside the Grand Council Chamber, the atmosphere was thick with a toxic, paralyzing panic. The air currents hummed with the chaotic remnants of the civil war still raging at the fractured outer perimeter gates, but inside these inner white-stone walls, a completely different type of crisis was tearing the elders apart.
The High Patriarch of the Tian Family sat at the head of the long mahogany council table, his fine golden silk robes slightly singed at the cuffs, his ancient features twisted into a mask of pure, bloodshot frustration.
The six cosmic judges stood in rigid lines right behind his seat, their star-embroidered celestial capes fluttering softly as their powerful spiritual perceptions monitored the frantic commotion vibrating from every single corridor of the capital.
