The golden light of the dissipated tribulations left a shimmering, iridescent haze in the air, a celestial afterglow that clung to the jagged remains of the Northern Branch's highest spires.
Shangguan Mu'er stood suspended in the void for a moment longer, her 150-meter-tall Spirit Avatar—a terrifying monument of dark violet flame and gluttonous intent—slowly dissolving into the atmosphere like smoke.
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her lungs expanding with the refined, high-density Qi of a Spirit Ascension expert.
The sensation was intoxicating; it was as if she had spent her entire life breathing through a thin straw only to suddenly have the entire sky forced into her chest.
She slowly descended, her bare, ash-white feet touching the scorched and blackened debris of what had once been her opulent, secluded residence.
The jade tiles had been pulverized into fine powder, and the reinforced walls were nothing but jagged stumps of stone.
