The contradiction in the sentence was complete and honest.
PAH PAH PAAH!
"—AAAHN~!!! HAANN~!!! AAAHNN~!!!—"
The light around her was solid now.
Not the shimmer of a breakthrough in progress — the specific, steady, full-body glow of a cultivator who had crossed into Core Formation Middle in the last ten minutes and had not stopped, the cultivation base still moving, still building, the ambient qi of the palace compound still flowing toward this room in the specific, you-can-feel-it-in-the-hallway pull of something large happening nearby.
The queen felt it on her skin.
The first attendant had pressed herself to the corridor wall beside the window with both shoulders against the stone, looking straight ahead at the opposite wall, and the expression on her face was the expression of a woman running a very complex internal negotiation.
Her hands were flat at her sides.
PAAH!
"—KYAAANGHHH~!!! AAAHNNNN~~~~~!!!!—"
Core Formation Late.
