The air within the sunken tiered arena didn’t smell of incense or pine. It smelled of iron, ozone, and the sour tang of hyperventilating scholars.
The black glass surface of Monolith Number Nine rose twenty feet into the grey mist like a slab of solidified midnight. Faint, distorted shadows writhed beneath its dark glaze. Reflections not of physical forms, but of unanchored spatial dimensions folding over themselves in endless, looping loops.
Young Master Yan Zixuan stood five paces before the stone, his white peacock fan folded tightly in his trembling grip.
“Watch well, country teacher!” Yan Zixuan bellowed, his voice straining against the invisible pressure pushing against his chest. “Witness the old family soul-anchor of the Gu Sage Clan!”
Yan Zixuan bit the tip of his tongue. A spray of fine crimson mist drifted from his lips, igniting into a faint golden halo around his temples as his eyes locked onto the black glass mirror.
One breath. The air rippled. Yan Zixuan’s pupils dilated until the whites of his eyes were almost entirely burned up by darkness.
Two breaths. A high-pitched ringing sound, like a wet crystal bowl rubbed with an iron needle, echoed from the depths of the stone. Veins bulged along Yan Zixuan’s throat like twisting blue vines.
