The second disaster struck before the floor of Entry hall 120 could dry.
Qiao Ming had barely stepped onto the grand terrace of the Western Cross-hall when the air in the giant stone hall changed. It didn’t cool or warm. It lost its thickness. In a single terrifying heartbeat, the air pressure in the three-hundred-foot chamber plunged by nearly a third, causing his ears to pop with a sharp, sickening click and drawing the air wildly from his lungs.
The sound that followed was not born of stone or water.
It was a vast, tearing shriek—the sound screech of spatial fabric being wrenched apart across thousands of leagues of void, conducted directly into the foundation pillars of the Ark through the high spires above.
Around the outer edge of the cross-hall, seven huge statues carved from white marble stood in a grand half-round row of stone pillars.
They were the Seven Wardens of the White Tiger: ancient warrior-philosophers of the First Epoch, depicted in full scale-armor with carved swords resting points-down upon their boots, their stone visors thrown back to reveal faces of fierce, unbending vigilance.
all at once, all seven statues began to scream.
It wasn’t a human voice. Stone possesses no throat cords or lungs. The sound was produced by the sound chimney pipes carved through their necks. Air being sucked downward through their hollow mouths at hurricane speed as the pressure differential between the outer void and the safe hall reached a total maximum.
