Before the Crane Emperor could even lift his head, he suddenly found his vision spinning.
His eyes widened in shock as he realized he was looking at the world upside down—his head had been cleanly severed by a razor-thin arc of pure Qi.
The Crane Emperor's mouth hung open in a silent gasp of disbelief, his final expression frozen in a mixture of terror and incomprehension.
The disembodied head plummeted from the sky, tumbling in slow motion.
Silence gripped the air, broken only by the sight of the headless body slumping off the mount and hurtled to the earth below.
For a moment, the soldiers and officers were too stunned to react.
Then, as if a dam had broken, chaos erupted.
Shouts of fear and panic filled the air as the men scrambled in disarray, their disciplined formation collapsing in an instant.
"His Majesty is dead!" one soldier screamed.
"What... What kind of monster is he!?" another stammered, his voice cracking.
