Date: TC1853.07.31 – TC1853.08.01
Location: Seven Peaks – Integration Period
The sky cracked open at dawn.
Taron stood on Thunder Peak's tribulation platform with Stormheart drawn and held across both palms—not in combat stance, but in offering. The longsword hummed against his skin, its spirit-name glowing blue-white along the blade's edge, and through their bond, he felt the weapon's anticipation like a second heartbeat pressed against his own.
Together, Stormheart pulsed. We face this together.
Raven watched from the observation ridge fifty metres below, close enough to intervene if something went catastrophically wrong, far enough to avoid her own spiritual pressure contaminating the tribulation's judgment. The morning air tasted of ozone and wet stone, and the sect's formation network thrummed beneath her feet—Silas had calibrated the tribulation zone's energy channels three times since midnight.
