The upright shaft plunging from the convergence chimney pipe down to the Tartarus Deep pit was known in ancient First Great realm texts as the Throat of the World. At minus twenty-five thousand meters beneath the Earth’s crust, the physical reality of the planet underwent a deepest phase change.
Here, stone was no longer brittle, fractured rock. Under eight-point-four gigapascals of lithostatic pressure and heat levels exceeding seventeen hundred degrees, the mantle existed in a state of ductile, glowing plastic warping. The dense green rock and bridgmanite flowed like blazing bright, semi-solid taffy. It glowed with ribbons of deep cherry red, molten gold, and rainbow-bright violet aether.
The geology of the lower mantle defied all mortal experience. At minus twenty-five thousand meters, rock didn’t break. It twisted like warm wax under sky-high forces. The magnifying glass identified the surrounding stone strata as dense bridgmanite and calcium-stone-glass perovskite, interlaced with gleaming bands of native iron-nickel alloy. The heat rising heat currents moved with the heavy, slow driving force of hundreds of years, carrying blasting heat from the liquid outer core thousands of miles below.
Arthur stood on the platform. He felt the deep privilege of his dual existence. As Fang Ran, he had studied the theoretical models of Earth’s deep inside in university textbooks, marveling at the unreachable depths of the mantle. Now, as an Apex Breeder walking beneath the crushing weight of twenty-five miles of living planet, he observed the vital organs of the world with his own eyes. The…
