The twelve steps of semi-clear blue ice were carved without a single join.
They rose from the floor of Entry hall 850 with the geometrical perfection of a sight lens, each riser exactly eighteen inches high, each tread four arm-lengths deep, polished to a mirror-like finish that reflected the azure ceiling with total, undistorted fidelity.
When Qiao Ming placed his bare, amber-coated foot upon the first step, he felt no cold shock. The ice of the dais was condensed sky ether. Starlight tightly packed under sixty mountain-crushing pressure of ancient pressure until the light itself had crystal-hardened into a solid, unbending stone harder than corundum. It didn’t melt beneath the heat of human flesh. It didn’t sweat or frost. It remained eternally rigid, holding the heat memory of the universe at its total nadir.
Around the base of the first tier, kneeling in a solemn, eight-sided circle, rested the Eight Stellar Kings.
They were twelve arm-lengths in height, carved from single crystals of pale blue diamond. Each king wore the ritual armor of the pre-flood sky dynasties. Cuirasses of overlapping diamond scales, shin guards tipped with star-iron flukes, and helmets crowned with stylized solar discs. Their hands were extended forward, palms pressed flat against the sapphire floor, their foreheads resting upon the stone in the eternal prostration of vassals before their sovereign.
