The ships cast shadows over the Jade Mountain.
Not one ship. Not ten. The entire fleet, hundreds of vessels, their hulls blocking the sun, their formation arrays humming with condensed spiritual qi, descended upon the mountain's eastern ridge. The sails, bearing the insignia of four great sects, snapped in the wind.
The spiritual pressure of ten thousand cultivators pressed down on the earth below, the weight bending the spirit-grass flat, cracking the stone pathways, sending the mountain's wildlife fleeing in every direction.
The town of Qinghe was thirty li from the Jade Mountain. The townspeople had felt the fleet pass overhead an hour ago. The shadows had darkened their streets, their homes, their markets. Children had cried. Dogs had howled. The town guards, a modest force of fifty Foundation Establishment cultivators, had stood at their posts with white faces and trembling hands.
Now, the fleet had landed.
