For three long, painful heartbeats, the Throat of Heaven was swallowed by a total, unnatural silence.
The huge bronze channel, spanning three miles in width and stretching beyond the limits of mortal vision into the sky high sky, stopped humming. The unending, low-hum shaking that had rattled the bones of the cosmos for ten thousand years simply ceased. The upward empty pocket died. The invisible sky currents that had dragged the purest spiritual essence of the mortal plane into the high heavens vanished. That left the purple ether as calm and motionless as a frozen mountain lake.
Gu Qingfeng gripped his chipped wine gourd in mid-air, his gray eyes narrowing as he stared into the dark, yawning inside of the bronze junction. His hair, usually whipped wildly by the upward draft, fell limp across his shoulders.
“It stopped,” the Sword Saint murmured, his voice sounding shockingly loud in the sudden empty pocket. “The thieves’ straw is dry.”
Su Ling’er hovered beside him, her nine snowy fox tails bristling as a gut spiritual chill raced down her spine. The air felt unnervingly thin, pregnant with the terrifying, choking tension that precedes a lightning strike on an open plain.
“Sect Master...” Su Ling’er whispered, glancing down at the little blue blob floating between them. “Is it finished?”
