The Azure Origin Pearl rested on the jade flat stone slabs of the High Altar like a tiny world of liquid turquoise.
It was forty-five inches in width, perfectly ball-shaped. It shook with a gentle, rhythmic pulse that matched the tidal swell of the global oceans. Within its semi-clear depths, swirling patterns of emerald and cerulean light formed star-patterns that mirrored the sky rivers of the ancient epoch.
Arthur knelt on the wet jade, his breathing steadying inside his diving cowl.
He didn’t touch the pearl with bare hands. He reached into his field kit. He drew a sterile sling woven from high-pulling stygian spider silk. He used two silver-steel metal tongs to cradle the sacred relic.
“Surface contamination check,” Arthur muttered, clicking his Zeiss monocle into careful spectroscopy mode.
The reading was clean.
Thanks to Pip’s instant solar cauterization and Echo’s time frozen stillness, not a single tiny spore of void fungus had touched the pearl’s crystal-clear matrix. It radiated pure, untainted Wood-Water Creation Essence. The ancient life-force capable of regenerating crushed organs, reversing cellular black rot, and stabilizing world-size ocean currents.
Behind Arthur, the nine-headed hydra stirred.
