The forty-pace probe-capsule shattered on the outer palace plaza sixty paces beyond the courtyard wall with a hollow metallic thud.
It had plunged from the Star-Fall Sanctuary warship forty miles above the clouds, releasing a hundred-meter cloud of silvery-black Star-Marrow Qi. That dense vapor was the ambient sea-barrier energy surrounding the Star-Fall Archipelago.
The silvery-black mist hissed as it rolled across the flagstones, dissolving granite and bronze into bubbling sludge.
Ten paces from the crater stood an wooden trophy rack holding two captured Imperial Spirit Domain weapons—a crimson flame-halberd and a gilded dragon-glaive. Beside the rack rested a heavy Nascent Soul defense shield left behind by the inner garrison.
When the expanding cloud of Star-Marrow Qi touched the two captured Imperial Spirit Domain weapons and the Nascent Soul defense shield, their spiritual runes shrieked and went dark. Within seconds, their spiritual imprints and metal cores dissolved like sugar in boiling water, pooling into grey-black liquid on the stones.
Weeds along the plaza edge shriveled to black ash before the vapor even touched their stems.
Fifty paces away, Captain Morvath and Vice-Commander Xiao ordered the newly surrendered guards to retreat behind the inner gatehouse ramparts.
“Fall back behind the secondary earthworks!” Morvath called out, waving his red signal flag. “Do not breathe the silvery-black fumes! Cover your mouths with wet felt!”
