Two miles south of the Black Crag Basin, the lattice windows of the Outer Sect Administrative Hall rattled so wildly that three decorative fine china teacups shook off a rosewood shelf and shattered on the floor.
Elder Wu DeZheng stood on his high terrace. He gripped a brass three-draw telescope with hands slick with cold sweat.
Through the glass, the mountain sky was no longer dark—it was a world-ending, bruised violet. The clouds were not floating. They were spinning in a terrifying, funnel-shaped vortex whose tip hung less than three hundred feet above the quarry floor.
“Elder Wu! Elder Wu!”
Senior Clerk Ma stumbled onto the terrace, his silk scholar’s cap flattened against his head. He held a glowing jade monitoring slab that was flashing red like a siren.
“The ground-shaking needles have jumped off the parchment!” Clerk Ma screamed, his voice cracking into a panicked falsetto. “The regional formation array reports a Four-Nine Punitive Sky-trial forming directly over Black Crag! The energetic potential exceeds eight million pounds of striking force! If that quarry detonates, the ground-shaking blast wave will flatten the Outer Sect Grain Silos two miles out!”
Elder Wu’s telescope slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering onto the flat stone slabs.
