Heavy iron-toed boots clattered against the bronze chain bridge as Hour 66 of the grand conclave arrived.
Ten men marched in rigid military lockstep onto Platform Seven. They wore the flowing white silk robes and gold embroidered sashes of tournament arbitration inspectors, but they walked with the predatory balance of trained killers.
Beneath the loose hems of their silk sleeves, heavy soul-iron batons and spiked suppression cuffs clinked faintly with every step.
All ten were veteran Saint Vessel Mid Judicators of the Imperial Censorate. Their lethal spiritual pressure was tightly coiled beneath forged magistrate tokens.
Across the boiling waters of the caldera, the amphitheater was thick with exhaustion and tension.
Of the original one hundred competitors, only nineteen remained standing. Across the lake, eighty-one platforms sat charred and abandoned, surrounded by scorched debris and pools of cooling slag.
The surviving alchemists were staggering on their feet, their eyes vacant and bloodshot as they coaxed the final transformations from their dying furnaces.
The spectators in the lower rings leaned over the bronze banisters in confusion.
