The emerald radiance of the Dragon-Jade Gravitational Keystone pulsed through the chamber with increasing clarity.
Lin Xiao’s micro-tendrils flushed the final leftovers of hardened melted rock waste from the bronze lubricant channels. Then, the ninth outer ring clicked into place. The friction that had tortured the ancient gearwork for thousand years vanished. The nine nested bronze rings began to spin in silent, counter-rotating orbits, weaving complex sharp-angled arcs of emerald and starlight through the void.
Yet, despite the clockwork restoration of the gears, the core’s internal light remained dangerously frail.
Deep within the emerald dodecahedron, the actual energetic fire—the central world-size fire that generated the gravity flow-charge—flickered like a candle trapped in a violent draft. The light was not the healthy, robust amber-gold of living earth-marrow. It was a pale, sickly greenish-violet, wavering erratically between life and oblivion.
Lin Xiao felt the heat drop again. Even wrapped inside his warm, eighty-meter azure cocoon, an icy chill seeped through the keystone’s jade walls. It was a cold that didn’t come from winter snow or frozen ice. It was the total, entropic chill of an ancient star burning down to cold embers.
“Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao sent mentally. He tightened his jelly-like embrace around the core to shield it from the surrounding cold. “The gears are turning, but the engine isn’t catching. What’s going on in the burning chamber?”
