The ceiling of Entry hall 744 blew up with total violence.
A circular slab of dark rock twelve arm-lengths wide snapped away from the vault, crashing onto the bronze floor plates of the firing bay with a thunderous impact that sent a cloud of stone splinters across the gallery. Right away through the breach plunged the massive diamond cone head of Drill Number Four. A spinning monster of forged hardened carbon-iron three arm-lengths in width, rotating at three thousand turns a minute, spewing a geyser of high-pressure yellow mud and scalding salt water into the hall.
Behind the roaring drill came the vanguard of the Azure Firmament Sect. Dropping swiftly down heavy steel deployment cables came six quadrupedal clockwork probe hounds. Armored brass automatons four feet long, equipped with high-speed rotary saws and hardened carbon-iron claw-jaws designed to clear rubble and slaughter defenders.
“FIRE!” Yan Zhiqiu cried out, her voice cutting through the clockwork roar.
Qiao Ming jerked the star-silver lanyard.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Giant stone Repeating Air-powered Ballista let loose its fury. One hundred and seventy-five bar of tightly packed air drove the air-powered piston forward, releasing the twelve-strand star-steel bowstring with a sound like the cracking of a mountain ridge. The first forty-eight-pound star-fallen harpoon left the bronze firing bed at two hundred and forty paces per second.
