Kaelen slid the heavy iron coffer lid back over the lead jars, muffling the reek of burned marrow.
“Lock this coffer in the deepest cellar recess,” Kaelen told Old Barnaby. “Under three layers of suppression talismans. Nobody touches those jars until I say so.”
“Aye, Young Master,” Barnaby muttered, rubbing his scarred chin with a soot-stained sleeve. “If the Censorate catches wind of this sediment, they will turn the whole province inside out looking for the furnace.”
He dragged the heavy coffer toward the iron-reinforced storage alcove, grunting with each step.
Beside the subterranean pool, Sera Thorne leaned against the granite wall.
Her breath was shallow, and her amber eyes flickered with faint, erratic sparks of silver lightning. The physical strain of forcing open the seven-lock array, combined with the sharp spiritual recoil from the river ley lines, had set her inner Qi churning like a wind-whipped sea.
Her dantian was full to bursting.
The combat insights from the infiltration had pushed her Golden Core Early bottleneck to its absolute limit.
