The void around the Throat of Heaven erupted into a blinding ring of sharp-angled fire that pushed back the velvet blackness of the stars.
Twelve huge giant pillars, each standing three hundred feet tall and forty paces thick, rose into their final locking positions along the outer rim of the Sky Boundary. Forged from sun-refined sky brass and alloyed with crushed astral mica and sun-melted red stone, the surfaces of the pillars were etched with tens of thousands of ancient Yang glyphs that burned with the harsh, sterile radiance of an artificial sun.
Floating crystal rings, thick as castle moats and carved from single seams of astral diamond, spun around the midsections of the twelve pylons at hypersonic speed. With each rotation, an ear-splitting static-electric hum rang through the ether, invisible the thin air into swirling sheets of violet and gold star-fire that crackled with multi-million-volt discharges.
Aboard the Radiant Solar Sovereign, which had limped into the defensive outer edge alongside the leftover galleons, Celestial Envoy Bai Ming gripped the dragon rail with wild, wild-eyed exultation. His silk robes were singed, his face blackened by soot from their own reflected artillery. But seeing the sacred stonework of Heaven wake up restored every ounce of his manic arrogance.
