The heavy iron drop-gate rose with a shriek of tortured gears. It showed a chamber bathed in searing, violent crimson light. Fourteen iron-clad temple guardians, their arms bound in flame-retardant ashen leather, strained against thick bronze tow-chains as they hauled a huge vessel into the judgment hall.
It was the Nine-Yang Inquisitorial Crucible.
Cast during the Second Epoch from three hundred tons of star-fallen dark-iron, the cooking pot stood twelve feet tall on three clawed feet shaped like the talons of a fire dragon. Its belly was bulbous. It was wrapped in three bands of glowing crimson warding rings that groaned under terrifying internal pressure. From the open circular mouth at the top, a column of jagged, blood-colored flame roared toward the ceiling, spewing thick plumes of oily black smoke and showering the dark rock floor with hissing embers.
The surrounding heat inside the judgment hall skyrocketed by two hundred degrees within seconds. The moisture on the stone railings vanished in plumes of vapor. The fine silk robes of the visiting scholars began to curl and scorch at the hems.
Grand Elder Yan Gu stood tall atop the trial platform, the crimson glare of the fire reflecting off his bared teeth.
