The sky above Lotus Pavilion was... wrong.
Broken.
Stormy.
And wrong.
A dull overcast hue blanketed the ruins below like a mourning shroud, and the very air pulsed with the aftertaste of calamity.
The once-sacred sect—famed for its graceful cultivation techniques and spiritual harmony—was now a graveyard of shattered bridges and crumbled stone pagodas overgrown with vines.
Tian Shen stepped cautiously beside Elder Su, boots crunching over broken ground.
The still ponds were filled with black algae. The wind carried no birdsong.
Only whispers.
Of unknown kind.
"So this is what's left of the Lotus Pavilion."
Tian Shen muttered, surveying the devastation.
Elder Su nodded slowly, her sharp eyes scanning the surrounding pillars that jutted out of the earth like broken ribs.
"It was once among the Top ten powers."
She said quietly.
"And now? Reduced to a cursed echo. The fall was sudden. Unnatural."
