Stones the size of houses rose from the basin. Broken siege engines turned over slowly in the air. Soldiers clung to roots and buried posts as their feet left the ground. A Foundation elder called his flying sword. The sword shot straight up, and he had to let it go before it took him with it.
Pei Jing stayed eighty paces above the crater. Six rings held to the surface of his new core. Its pull held him where he stood while the ground beneath him broke up and rose around his boots.
The Astral Bone Blade began to sing in its sheath. He touched his grandfather’s whetstone once more. The stone pressed against the same callus it had pressed against since he was a boy. He could still feel that small weight in a world where the hills had begun to float.
He drew the blade and took the grip in both hands. He settled his weight onto the hard air beneath his feet and lowered the squared nose beside his hip.
The center of the Heavenly Eye went black. Two straight blades fell out of it, one beside the other. Each was sixty paces long. They made no light and no sound of their own. In their wake, Pei Jing heard the air fold in on itself like silk tearing. An old shield would part as easily as the air. His own blade could cut along the same lines in space.
