The universe lost all color.
The strike didn’t look like lightning. It looked like a solid column of violet-black sky star-fire six feet in width, dropped from the clouds like a solid iron pillar dropped from orbit.
Before the sound of the thunder arrived, the blast wave of pure magnetic ionization hit the basin floor.
Every drop of moisture within fifty paces flash-boiled away into dry steam. The wooden stakes of the inner outer edge burst into blinding yellow flames. Then he turned to drifting grey ash in less than five split seconds. The stench of raw, burning ozone was so thick it tasted like copper pennies dissolving on the back of Lin Ke’s tongue.
Impact in zero point zero four seconds.
In the eastern control bunker, Shen Yue’s diamond chisels were already shaking wildly.
“Step down the current!” she screamed, her voice lost in the roaring empty pocket of incoming star-fire. “Engage the chokes!”
She slammed both bloodstained palms flush onto the central nexus of her etched dark rock mandala.
