Midway up a mountain at the back of the Lang Clan, a few dozen people in flowing and perfectly tailored hanfu were standing in front of an immense stone statue. The statue was nearly twenty feet tall and depicted a huge bird of prey with a particularly sharp beak and claws. Three shades of gray marble were used to create contrast among the bird’s many feathers. In addition to the gray marble, there was a lighter mottled stone used for its legs, and lastly the darkest stone was used for the hawk’s beak and claws, which were smooth and polished to a mirror-like luster.
At the foot of the giant hawk statue there was a smaller man-sized statue of a tall, lanky young man. He had a long hooked nose and very large eyes. The eyes were the same polished dark stone as the hawk’s claws, and carved with such exquisite detail that they gave the impression that the man had a piercing gaze that could scare a mortal if they stared into them for too long. He had thick bushy eyebrows, and the sculptor had gone to the trouble of using two separate colors of stone to depict a bright lock of hair at the man’s temple. His hair was long and flowed down to the middle of his back. The man’s clothing was of a darker color stone than his exposed flesh was.
Lastly, there was a rectangular stone block that the man was using to lean against with one bent leg. The block the man was leaning on was carved with large characters on its front face that read: Tiankong Wang. The King of the Sky. Upon the sides of the block, smaller denser characters were carved, detailing the great accomplishments that this figure accomplished. More specifically, it was mostly just a list of names. That was because this monument was also a gravestone and in life it was the one thing that it’s occupant cared most about.
Sage was at the front of the crowd and watching as his ten children went up one after the other to light incense on the flat space in front of the huge stone monument. After defeating the Violet Light Sect, Sage had finally been able to recover King’s body and they had commissioned sculptors to create this giant monument. The Tiankong Clan had wished to bury King in their new clan home, but Sage resisted. For one they might one day leave the vicinity of the Mount Song Sword Sect, but he was also selfish in wanting the grave to be on his own Clan’s territory where it could be protected by the Lang Clan. He thought about placing the grave inside the Lang Clan tomb, but that might one day create difficulty for the Tiankong Clan members to visit it.
There was also the fact that he didn’t want to bury King somewhere lacking a view of the sky. He thought about putting it at one of the highest peaks, but they were far less stable and for some reason a common target for cultivators to practice on. His guess was that it was related to so many legendary heroes being said to ‘split a mountain with a single attack’. That and there were many Sects that liked to slash the peak off a mountain to make flat spaces to establish their headquarters. Sage decided to compromise and placed it high up on a mountain, but far enough from the peak that it wouldn’t get easily sheared off. The huge statue was placed up against the side of the mountain while the footpath that led up to it culminated at a large open area in front of it. This way, King would always be staring out into the sky and overlooking the Lang Clan.
They had conducted a funeral many years ago and had shed many tears already. Since the Tiankong Clan had come back to the Lang Clan at this time and Sage was going to leave for a long time, they took this opportunity to pay their respects. Sage’s own children had never met King, but they still showed their respect for someone that had given his life to save their father. They made solemn offerings and then stepped back respectfully.
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King’s children, which numbered more than a hundred, were staring up at the huge hawk. Each of the six in the front, that Sage had trained and fought with, had a single finger armored with translucent blue crystal. The segmented crystal armor covered only a single finger, was perfectly segmented to allow flexibility, and had a large talon on its tip. This Talon Finger Armor was crafted out of King’s talons by the Violet Light Sect. The top level leaders of the Violet Light Sect each had one to enhance the power of their finger attacks. Now that they were wiped out, Sage had given one of them to the six Tiankong Clan members that he was closest with: Ruanfu, Jiyao, Juzui, Baozhai, Tujiu, and Songji. Sage would not have chosen to make his former friend into Magical Tools, but now that the deed was already done they choose to keep them on hand so that their father could fight on at their side.
Despite his misgivings, the Tiankong Clan were curious about the rest of King’s body. To them, the best way to honor their ancestor would be to use his body to empower the later generations. Even if they took human forms now, the Tiankong Clan were still Demonic Beasts. These birds would rather their bodies be used in every way they could to help their clan. For them, being turned into tools and medicine to advance their descendants was an honor. If they were turned into a mighty weapon and used by their descendants to become famous, wouldn’t that be great? Sage didn’t let the vain and preening birds get their way, leaving the remainder of King’s body in its grave and heavily protected by formation arrays.
They thought it was odd, but they let him be after Sage assured them he wouldn’t make any similar demands of the rest of the Tiankong Clan. King had already left behind formidable weapons for the clan, so that would be enough.
Eventually, the memorial came to an end as the sun dropped below the horizon and night arrived. The group turned around and walked back down the hill at the same slow pace as mortals would. Then they threw another final banquet, one that was far more somber and bittersweet than that of the last week.
Sage said his goodbyes to the Tiankong Clan and the half of his children that had to head back to their duties in other places. He spent a few months on the Inner World with Ling and Jiao, then went into seclusion in a remote part of the Lang Clan. He had initially planned to leave quickly, but he remembered there was one more important task to accomplish and it was better done now than later. During the weeks he’d been waiting for his children and the Tiankong Clan to arrive, as well as the week-long banquet, Sage was already undergoing metamorphosis on the Inner World. He hadn’t yet had the chance to combine with the Bone Mantis, so he took this opportunity now in order to pass the Lang Clan a new body before he left. After spending months setting up a meeting with the Cult of the Woodlord, he had less than a year till the second auction so he didn't take any risks by conducting metamorphosis at that time. He instead spent that time mastering the Arborist Profession and training with Heavenly Materials.
At this time, with the memorial finished, Sage went into seclusion and brought out a new insect that he used the Merge technique upon with his body on the outside world. The fact that he replaced his tongue with a Magical Tool caused a little difficulty, but he already solved that problem on the Inner World, so his change on the outside world was very smooth. Even if he still hadn’t technically left the Lang Clan, he chose to get the farewells out of the way first and keep himself hidden. The Inner World couldn’t interact with the outside world while his true body was in metamorphosis anyway.