At minus twelve thousand meters below the surface of the earth, the bone horizon ended suddenly at the edge of a sheer iron-hard metal deep pit.
Spanning the deep gap was a huge raised stone road of black star-iron, suspended without cables or support pillars, held in place purely by the outward gravity push of the deep-sea trench below. At the far end of the raised stone road rose the entrance to Progenitor Vault 1.
It was a giant stone threshold that defied human stone-built understanding.
The gate stood over one hundred and ten meters tall and forty-five meters wide, set flush into the living iron-hard metal bedrock of the world-size mantle. The surface of the barrier was forged from dark star-iron. A pre-Cataclysm sky alloy that absorbed all surrounding light and refracted it into faint, oily swirls of deep violet soft glow.
Carved across the huge face of the gate was a massive, circular mandala representing the world-size holding pentagram. Five stylized beasts were depicted around the outer rim—a wolf, a bird, a tortoise, a tiger. A horned giant beast—their bodies twisted together in a nonstop, unbroken chain of ancient runic glyphs that sealed a glowing sphere in the center.
