The southern wing of the mezzanine was cloaked in a faint, hypnotic violet twilight.
Suspended along the vaulted ceiling were colossal gear-wheels forged from celestial brass and dark chronos-steel.
Each tick of the massive pendulum above sent ripples through the air, causing dust motes to freeze and drift in slow motion.
This was the Supreme Time-Law Artifact Gallery, the most exclusive and guarded section of the Myriad-Sovereign Luxury Pavilion.
Young Sovereign Jinye stood in the center of the gallery floor, bathed in the soft glow of temporal formations.
He slowly raised his left arm, shaking his silk sleeve back to reveal a gleaming wristwatch.
The watch was carved from a single piece of dark stellar obsidian.
Its face contained a swirling miniature galaxy of frozen starlight, bounded by twelve golden needles that rotated counter to the cosmic flow.
