The crimson extraction chains shrieked as they bit through tempered iron.
Sera drove the butt of Storm-Pike into the marble, trying to brace her weight against the brutal downward drag. Her Saint Vessel Peak aura flared like a silver bonfire, pushing back against the upper-realm gravity that felt ten times heavier than the lower world.
The moment her aura flared, the floor beneath her boots turned into a roaring vortex.
The blood-red runes did not merely hold her. They drank. A violent hum tore through the cloud-stone platform as a visible ribbon of silver Qi was ripped from Sera’s ankles, pulled straight down into the subterranean conduit pipes.
Beside her, two vanguard scouts panicked. They unleashed their defensive domain flames, shouting as their broadswords flashed with protective light.
The platform answered with an angry, ravenous roar.
More chains erupted from the marble floor, coiling around their waists and shoulders in blazing iron knots. In less than three breaths, the radiant light of their domains was sucked dry.
Both scouts collapsed to their knees on the cloud-stone. They gasped like beached carp while ten thousand Qi per minute drained from their trembling dantian pools.
