Deep inside the damp, emergency access tunnel beneath the referee booth, Chief Arbiter Han was scrambling on his hands and knees like a panicked badger.
His luxurious royal silk robes were shredded into dirty rags. His singed afro puff was caked in plaster dust and grease. Behind him, Arbiter Zong was crawling wildly, his fingernails bleeding as he dragged himself across the damp slate flooring, whimpering with every breath.
“Hurry! Hurry, you fool!” Han hissed, his voice trembling with manic, unhinged hysteria. “He’s walking this way! Did you hear his boots?! He walks like the grim reaper counting paces on a cemetery floor!”
The two corrupt arbiters reached the end of the underground hall, stumbling onto a circular platform paved with glowing astral jade.
In the center of the platform rested an ancient, eight-sided array stone stand—the secret escape portal of the Master Teacher Imperial Board. Han reached into his inner pocket with shaking fingers. He pulled out a semi-clear, nine-inch magic charm carved from void-jade, pulsating with blinding silver spatial runes.
An 8-Star Spatial Escape Magic charm.
It was a priceless, First Epoch land-wide treasure given to Chief Arbiters for emergency evacuations. Once activated, it could tear open a stable spatial rift across ten thousand miles, bypassing all country wards and teleporting the users directly into the sovereign territory of the Central Continental Pavilion!
