The light-projected projection in the center of the council hall swelled, its vibrant azure light lighting up the rough timber rafters of the ceiling with fine, detailed, wireframe care.
Dao Spirit adjusted the zoom index by four orders of size. The three-mile-wide bronze metal tube resolved into razor-sharp topographical clarity. It exposed every bolt, every linked seam. Every tiny stress fracture piled up across thousand years of relentless operation. Surrounding dust motes floating through the hall seemed to freeze in place as the vastness of the clockwork titan fifty miles above them was laid bare upon the air.
Su Ling’er stepped closer, her nine tails swaying in unconscious agitation. Her keen fox eyes scanned the runic stone carvings wrapping around the channel’s outer bronze sleeve, her breath catching in her throat.
“Those glyphs,” Su Ling’er murmured, tracing her fingers through the light. “Those aren’t modern Upper Realm court script. The syntax is ancient... Look at the squared radicals and linked star-knots. That’s the Seal Script of the Ancient Era. The First Dynasty used those exact markings before the Great Cataclysm.”
“Analysis confirmed,” Dao Spirit responded, her voice echoing through the chamber. “Sight character recognition correlates the glyphs with the Pre-Historic Celestial Dynasty, estimated construction epoch: about 2.8 million terrestrial cycles prior to the current era. The installation wasn’t built by the current Heavenly Sky-trial Court. Rather, the contemporary court merely inherited, retrofitted, and swelled an ancient heavy-duty public works established during the Mythic Dawn.”
