The rain of boiling sulfur fell as a solid, roaring clouded eye of molten hellfire, sweeping through the shattered ceiling like a river of liquid sun.
With a world-ending roar that split the dark rock foundations of the mountain, the entire central dome of the Glacial Nave gave way. Forty arm-lengths of glass-fused bedrock, melted to white-hot melted rock waste by the heat cutters, collapsed in a single massive avalanche. Down through the gaping wound poured forty thousand tons of white-hot liquid sulfur at twelve hundred and eighty degrees, mixed with molten iron melted rock waste and clouds of yellow, choking vapor under four crushing deep-sea pressure of steam pressure.
Behind the falling deluge, the monstrous snout of Zhu Heling’s central void-borer plunged fully into the nave. Twenty arm-lengths across, its three helical cutter heads spinning in a blur of diamond-tipped teeth, the star-iron engine roared downward like a falling meteor, its multi-ton drive shaft intending to smash the sovereign terrace and crush the crystal thrones into powder.
“Rotate to the second notch!” Qiao Ming roared, his voice tearing through the ear-splitting loud noise. “Now, record-keeper Yan! Open the Slack-Water Sluices!”
Together, their shoulders braced and their blood singing with the shared rhythm of forty billion sleeping souls, Qiao Ming and Yan Zhiqiu threw their weight against the star-fallen iron tiller. The joined scepter turned sixty degrees further, its internal cams engaging the backup high-pressure pawls with a heavy, metal thud that rang through the deck.
