ZZZZZZZZT—CLANG!
Down at the thirty-mile mark beneath Dry-Well City, the seventy-two Rank 6 Golden Sword-Blades on the bottom of the Dry-Well Abyssal Elevator & Super-Drill spun to a halt, showering the cavern with millions of dazzling silver-white sparks.
On the middle command bridge, everyone rushed to the crystal floor-windows and looked down.
Beneath the golden nose cone of the drill lay a smooth, curving expanse of silver-white metal. Even after being buried thirty miles underground for thousands of years, the metal had not a single speck of rust on it. Faint constellations of blue and silver starlight flowed beneath its surface like living rivers buried under ice.
“What kind of iron is that?!” General Tie Zhan knelt on the glass floor, pressing his scarred forehead right against the pane. “Our drill nose cone is fused from fifty tons of Rank 6 Furnace-Gold and powered by Brother Ye’s seventy-two-sword array! It chewed through twenty miles of deep-earth basalt and ancient blood-seals like soft tofu—yet it didn’t even dent this silver plate!”
Next to him, Ye Guhan closed his eyes and sent a wisp of his Rank 6 Early Golden Core sword-sense tapping against the silver metal below.
PING!
The tiny wisp of sword-sense bounced straight back, making Ye Guhan’s white robes flutter as he took half a step backward.
