The air in the long dark rock hall grew colder with every step.
Lin Ke advanced through the green soft glow of his HUD, his broken fingers pinned firmly against his ribs. The silence was so dense that the quiet, clockwork scrape of his iron boot-heels against the stone sounded like hammer blows on an anvil.
Fifty paces down the hall, the hallway ended at a dead end.
Blocking the entire passage was a huge, circular blast door, twelve feet in width, forged from an unknown, dull bronze alloy that carried neither tarnish nor patina.
It had no keyholes. It had no magic charm sockets. It had no handles, levers, or spiritual imprint plates.
Dead-center in the metal face, a single sharp-angled glyph glowed with a faint, pulsing crimson soft glow. An linked triangle circumscribed by a circle.
A security lockout barrier.
Lin Ke stopped three paces from the door.
