The air on the summit of Tongtian Apex had ceased to behave like normal mountain air.
Frank stepped out from the creaking cellar inner wall of Classroom 404. Then, the midday sun had fully disappeared.
In its place was a sky the color of burned transformer oil.
A swirling, hundred-thousand-mile vortex of crushed gravity force hung suspended over the mortal plane. It spun in counter-clockwise convulsions that dragged the upper troposphere down toward the mountain peaks.
High in the stratosphere, standing atop a crest of fractured spatial glass, the Heavenly Dao Avatar trembled in violent, rhythmic spasms.
Its eight-foot humanoid body of golden sky runes was no longer composed of calm cosmic law.
A jagged, pulsing lattice of void-black static crawled across its chest and limbs, discharging uneven sheets of magenta lightning that hissed against the clouds like boiling grease.
Stripped of its root write permissions by the transfer of the Unified Sovereign Token, the self-running daemon had fallen into a total logic fault.
