Inside the grand, gold-paneled halls of the Alchemical Pavilion, the air was suffocatingly thick with the rich scent of burning medicinal herbs and heavy spiritual charcoal. The Chief Master had just returned from his tense, freezing audience with the Grand Branch Leader at the supreme summit, his mind already churning with a bitter, suppressed rage over the political deadlocks he had encountered.
But the moment he stepped into the central courtyard, his focus was completely shattered by a chorus of frantic, panicked screams.
The contingent of senior alchemists burst through the heavy vermilion gates, their faces pale as death and their hands covered in thick, smoking crimson. They were desperately channeling their internal qi into a floating stretcher, where the fragmented, mangled remains of the Vice Hall Master lay barely held together by a few shreds of charred orange silk and rapidly deteriorating muscle tissue.
