The shattered subterranean corridor hissed with lingering lightning, the pungent ozone momentarily driving back the nauseating stench of rotten flesh, dried sweat, and decades of putrid defilement.
Pulverized stone dust drifted through the air like gray snow, illuminated by the radiant, blinding halo descending around Qian Yunxi.
From the shadows of the broken wall, the two crones who had been thrown aside scrambled to their feet like twisted, rabid rodents.
Their sunken, yellowed eyes burned with hysterical fury, venomous malice sloughing off them alongside flakes of dried bodily fluids and rotting skin.
The intrusion had not only shattered their pleasure chambers; it had ruptured the dark, sacrificial Yin-extracting ward they had nurtured for generations.
"Impudent, meddling harlot!" one shrieked, her voice grinding like rusty iron against wet bone.
