Pei Jing brought the Astral Bone Blade down in the Mountain-Cleaving Form. He had learned the first cut in a muddy guard yard. Now the figure in his dantian made the same movement. The force ran through the Tier 4 bridge, reached his hands, and passed into the blade.
The thin air ahead of the edge turned white. A narrow wave went out from the blade and crossed the glass before Xuan could draw his bronze sword. He had one foot on the gangway. He saw Pei Jing’s shoulders move and heard a small sound above him.
The sound came from the iron cauldron over the bow. Its golden light went out as a line opened across the middle of the iron. The two halves dropped out of their ring. The cauldron had set the timing for all thirty-two projectors. They lost it together. The eight-sided cage vanished from the summit.
The wave went on. It split the brass at the bow, followed the keel through the ship, and passed between the turbines. At the stern it came out through the rudder and kept going off the edge of the terrace.
For a breath the ship stayed on its skids. Xuan stood on the gangway with his sword half out. Then the air rushed into the cut. The crash shook the black glass. A trench four feet across and six feet deep opened from Pei Jing’s boots to the lip of the terrace. Far beyond it, the wave left a…
