The smell of ozone burned the back of Frank’s throat like cheap copper shavings tossed onto an open fire bowl. Above the sunken tiered arena, the sky curdled into thick, greasy clouds of bruised violet star-fire. Arcs of high-hum lightning leaped between the jagged limestone crags, weaving together into a linked dome of electric death.
Elder Mo Cheng hovered thirty feet above the flat stone slabs on two crackling discs of purple thunder. The Head Formation Judge of the Primordial Sacred Lands and a 7-Star Peak Formation Grandmaster. Then, Mo Cheng was accustomed to sovereigns begging on their knees for an audience. Seeing Young Master Yan Zixuan carried away like a limp sack of damp flour had cut the last shred of his academic composure.
“Ten Thousand Sages Decree!” Mo Cheng’s voice thundered from the heavens. It shook the bones of every scholar in the forest. “Under Section Nine of the Sacred Land Penal Code, any applicant who relies on heterodox hexes to deface old family megaliths shall suffer the Nine-Thunder Spirit vein Cleansing!”
Elder Mo Cheng slammed his iron array-compass with his right palm.
CLANG-CRACKLE—!
From the four corners of the grove, four ancient bronze obelisks hummed to life. Massive chains of blinding purple star-fire erupted from their apexes. It snapped across the clearing to form the dreaded Nine-Thunder Suppressing Array. The voltage shot up fast. Pebbles on the ground began floating in the static-electric field. Several junior scholars who stood sixty paces away screamed as their jade hairpins…
