The elders ran. Through the doors, through the corridors, out of the hall, into the courtyard. Their faces, white, terrified, were turned upward.
The sky was torn.
The rift, the spatial tear, the crack in the fabric of the lower world's barrier, opened. Not one rift. Four. The sky, the blue morning sky, was split by four massive tears. The edges, glowing with Upper World energy, golden and white, pulsed.
Through the rifts, the ships descended.
Four vessels. Enormous. The hulls, dark, carved from Upper World spirit-wood, the surfaces engraved with formation arrays that glowed with divine qi. The sails, black, bore no insignia. They needed none. The ships, the vessels, the fleet, were the property of the Long Dynasty. The imperial fleet.
The ships landed. The hulls, touching the mountain plateau, the same plateau that had held the sect fleet, cracked the stone. The weight, the spiritual pressure, the sheer mass of Upper World vessels, was immense.
