At dawn, thunder cracked on the horizon.
The Earth Sovereign had come.
Quinlan stood beside Serika, Feng, and Nalai at the grand palace gates, their forms silhouetted by the rising sun. The smooth steps beneath them glistened with morning dew, and twin qi signatures approached, different as stone and sky.
The first was Sage Rongtai the Immovable, the Mountain of Stillness.
A line of monks in ochre robes followed silently behind him like waves rolling behind an unshakable cliff. But when they reached the palace steps, they all stopped. Only Rongtai kept walking.
Alone, barefoot, serene. He was the embodiment of the term 'stoic.'
His every step felt like it weighed mountains—each footfall somehow quiet and yet louder than a man who was screaming. His bald head gleamed in the morning light, and a thick rosary hung from his neck.
