On the third morning, Pei Jing left the Outer Ring Dais. The swords there went past at thirty miles an hour. He knew how to feel the lines that carried them. To learn what happened when two blades met in one of those lines, he needed the faster swords nearer the center.
A stone bridge three feet wide led to the Middle Orbital Pathway. Below it, the vault dropped three thousand feet to the magma. A pebble knocked loose beneath his boot vanished before he could hear it strike.
The sound changed when he reached the middle ring. The blades ran closer together and moved at about two hundred miles an hour. Their passing pulled at the brim of his hat. A long sword gave off a deep drone. A thin one went by with a note sharp enough to hurt.
Pei Jing breathed from low in his belly and waited for his hearing to adjust. Marrow Washing and Viscera Refinement had changed the little bones in his ears. Within three minutes, he could pick one note out of the next. He heard a heavy falchion coming from the right and a light bronze sword crossing overhead. He could follow sixty blades at once without seeing the shape of a single one.
