The third rostrum of Mount Apex was built from semi-clear green serpent-jade, crowned by an open-air sky pavilion draped in star-charts.
Sovereign climbed up the podium was Patriarch Luo. He of the Ancient Star Clan and Chief Astrologer of the Sages’ Sanctum.
Unlike the wild, foaming Elder Gu, Patriarch Luo exuded the chilling, exact peace of a man who believed the cosmos belonged only to his balance sheet. He wore midnight-blue robes stitched with silver star-patterns. He held a massive sky sextant carved from solid star-fallen iron.
Luo raised his sextant toward the heavens, his voice smooth, ringing, and dripping with haughty scholastic power.
“The last rounds contested fluid and metal,” Patriarch Luo began. His gaze swept the one hundred thousand silent spectators. “Crude physical substances subject to wear and erosion. But Round Three touches that which can never be eroded, never be corrupted, and never be questioned: The Flawed Shape of Heaven!”
Luo gestured with a silver-ringed hand toward the nine huge floating jade platforms suspended in the sky.
“Look upon our sacred arena!” Luo proclaimed, his tone swelling with cosmic pride. “The Nine Floating Rostra of Mount Apex were laid out thirty thousand years ago by the Seven Primordial Demiurges! They form an unbeatable, perfectly even equilateral sky mandala! Each platform is locked into the magnetic ringing leylines of the North Starry Pole! Its shape is the physical manifestation of Heavenly Order itself! The angles are unchanging. The elevations are divinely ordained!”
