The closing of the Causal Fissure saved reality, but it doomed the Sunken Temple.
The two halves of the land-wide fault snapped shut. Then, the deep-rock whiplash sent a size-seven earthquake tearing through the underground foundations of Low-Khorat. The forty massive dark rock pillars supporting the Great Acoustic Nave snapped along their ancient stonework joints, exploding into hail of limestone shrapnel. Above them, the four-hundred-foot curved dome—already cracked and compromised by eighty years of Void-court steam drills—groaned like a dying titan and began to pancake downward.
Millions of tons of underground river water, held back by the ancient Schismatic floodgates, burst through the fractured water gate arches in a roaring wall of white foam and black mud.
“The ceiling is coming down!” Ren-the-Cinder shrieked from across the platform, scrambling on all fours toward the western channel entrance. “Every arch is buckling! The exact probability of our survival is currently zero point zero four percent! Run!”
Ren Vale slammed onto the bronze floor plates, the wind knocked fully from his lungs, his reforged Ivory-Iron Composite Awl skittering five paces across the flags. He rolled onto his belly, coughing up mouthfuls of sulfur ash and blood, his right shoulder screaming in agony.
