Heat radiating from the asteroid hammer melted the glaze on the ceramic teacup.
Yet Kaelen’s two fingers did not tremble by a hair’s breadth.
Between his index and middle fingertips, thirty tons of incandescent star-iron hung perfectly suspended in the void.
The First Furnace Warden let out a confused, mechanical shriek from its steam vents.
Its molten chest flared to forty-five thousand degrees, its hydraulic joints howling as it pumped every ounce of its Sovereign Dao Early core into forcing the hammer downward.
The hammer did not budge a fraction of an inch.
Elder Sterling and Linnea stood frozen on the terrace flagstones, their drawn weapons lowered as they stared in utter disbelief.
Barnaby Holt forgot to chew his sweet potato, his arm trembling as he watched a thirty-foot war-golem strain against a boy sitting on a bamboo stool.
