On a round stone lay a tattered, chopstick-length Scroll. A Broken Sword had pierced straight through it, pinning it to the stone. Impaled along with it was a damaged Puppet made of woven vines.
On the hilt of the Broken Sword and on the neck of the middle-aged man's corpse, there was a Protective Talisman. The talisman was marked with an inverted character for "Blessed Fortune."
And around the brilliantly glowing round stone were scattered numerous blade fragments, Scroll fragments, and pieces of the Puppet's vines.
The auras of the three objects—the Broken Sword, the torn Scroll, and the damaged Puppet—intertwined to form a pillar of Sword Qi. It shot up from within the room, burst through the roof, and soared into the sky.
Just then, as the two stood stunned, the auras of the three objects continued to entwine. The head-sized round stone beneath them flashed, and a Sword Shadow was born.
