The underground cave rang like a struck bronze cooking pot as Tie Shan’s meteor-iron hammer met the four-ton black glass fist in mid-air.
Striking force ripped across the grand avenue of the First Epoch writing hall, kicking up clouds of stone-hard granite powder and sending dried flakes of ancient lacquered mortar fluttering like gray butterflies from the fifteen-story ceiling. The blast wave rattled hundreds of thousands of jade slips in their dark rock racks. It set the defensive frozen stillness formations humming with rhythmic emerald pulses.
Tie Shan stood with his iron-furred legs planted two feet deep into the shattered flat stone slabs. His golden bear-titan marrow burned beneath his skin. He cast a rich, honeyed radiance across his braided gray beard. Veins as thick as ship ropes throbbed along his corded forearms as he held the huge black glass knuckle stationary above Lin Xiao’s head.
“Sturdy!” Tie Shan bellowed, his deep laugh shaking through the stone foundations. “Lord Xiao, this bastard is carved from unbending stuff! My hammer feels like it just clipped the core of a falling mountain!”
Directly above them, the twenty-three-foot titan build shuddered wildly. Internal dark rock gears screeched with a horrific, metal shriek that set everyone’s teeth on edge. The iron-puppet was hewn from solid void-black glass. Its dark plates took in the starlight lanterns until its huge dark shape looked like a hole torn into the fabric of the cave. But across its broad chest, neck bearings, and massive shoulder pauldrons, thick bands…
