The wind across the Great Aqueduct smelled of high-sky salt-spray and ozone.
Spanning sixty deep-water lengths above the drowned floor of Entry hall 012, the aqueduct was a single curved arch of white banded limestone, twelve paces wide. It was flanked by low stone low roof walls carved with sharp-angled water-registers. For three thousand years, it had carried the sweet mountain meltwater from the upper water tanks to the outer reservoirs. Now, dry and scoured by drafts, it served as the only raised bridge between the besieged writing hall and the vast sheltering courtyards of the inner entry halls.
On the center of the span stood Elder Yue Feng of the Azure Firmament Sect.
The elder had discarded his ritual sedan chair and his fluttering students. He stood alone, his silver hair bound by a coronet of jagged astral iron, his azure silk robes whipping wildly against his armored shins. In his two hands he held the Primordial Void-Sunder Broadsword. A massive, six-foot blade of dark star-fallen iron inlaid with blood-gold runes that radiated a blinding, choking aura of tightly packed sword-qi.
The air around the blade warped with heat-shimmer. Tiny arcs of golden lightning crackled along the cutting edge, turning the drifting dust-motes into sparkling ash before they could touch the metal.
