Hot desert wind blew salt dust across the Continental Border Rift.
Grand Elder Xuan Xiao and Patriarch Iron Blood stood outside their crimson pavilion, watching the bronze gate. Around them, disciples argued over who would enter next and how to force the ancient lock.
Then the hundred-ton doors opened.
Freezing white air rose above the threshold. Golden daylight followed. Where its warmth touched the canyon, green moss spread over the stone and small flowers opened in the cracks.
Pug stepped out first in his leather draft harness.
Behind him came forty-one hover flatbeds.
Xuan Xiao recognized the black armor stacked on the leading loads. “Those are the Void Titans.”
Iron Blood stared at the drone hulls. “And the Slaughter Spheres.”
A sword elder read the label on a sealed server case.
APPROVED SPARE — NODE 04 — DO NOT DROP
“What curse is that?”
“A shipping instruction,” Xiaoyao said as he passed. “Please don’t drop it.”
Austin walked beside the lead flatbed with his clipboard under one arm. His pipe wrench rested on his shoulder. The air bent around his boots, but his attention stayed on the road.
Near the eastern lane, several Clear Sky disciples waved at Xiaoyao.
“He kept us out of the crush!” one called. “That boy with the survey tripod opened the lane!”
Others who had followed his directions joined in. They did not understand the cooling repair or the operating agreement, but they remembered the hitching rail, the raised brass level, and the clear route away from the fallen tent.
Xiaoyao’s back straightened. Austin tapped his shoulder with the clipboard.
“Eyes on the road. Good work doesn’t mean you can stop watching the wheels.”
“Yes, Senior.”
Near the old hitching rail, the sixty shadow jackals bounded down the slope and formed an escort around the caravan.
Xuan Xiao felt Austin’s gravity press against the promontory. His knees buckled. Iron Blood dropped beside him, and soon elders and disciples across the canyon were kneeling.
“Supreme Sovereign of the Western Heavens!” Xuan Xiao cried.
Austin stopped at the main haul road. A silk pavilion banner still hung over the route. He pushed its pole aside with his wrench.
“Move those pavilions back four feet. I need a clear thirty-six-foot turning radius. Or your tent poles get ground into mulch.”
People scrambled to obey. This time they did not all press their faces to the ground. The disciples who knew the safe lanes began directing the others, copying Xiaoyao’s calm hand signals.
“The Sovereign decrees a sacred buffer of thirty-six feet!” someone shouted.
Austin sighed. “It’s a turning radius. Not a holy decree.”
He waved Pug forward. “Three miles an hour through the tight section. We have five hundred and twenty kilometers to Sunset Peak, and these loads need to reach the staging bays before night shift.”
The forty-one-pallet caravan rolled up the canyon road. Behind it, the bronze gate remained open under Overseer-04’s control. The Vault had not been emptied. Its lights still shone, its cooling pumps still ran, and its new partner was on the way home.