The iron gates of the competitor pens swung open with a dark, metal crash.
Twelve Trial court guards in lead-alloy mail shirts surged onto the arena sand, their heavy six-sided staves leveled in a tight crescent formation. Behind them marched two senior judges in charcoal-gray silk. It carried a heavy set of cold-iron crushing weight shackles forged with anti-spirit vein runes.
“Halt! By order of the Imperial Patent Trial, this competitor is placed under immediate office detention!” the lead judge barked, his voice echoing off the granite retaining walls.
Meng Shan didn’t move. He stood in the center of Ring Four with his boots planted in the two-inch craters, resting his chin on the handle knob of his upright iron slab like a statue carved from quarry dark rock.
Up in the competitor gallery, Lin Ke’s hand dropped to his sleeve. He drove the iron metal pen deep into his thumb pad.
Tsk.
“Branch checked: main.”
In sim/inquest-counter-1, Lin Ke simulated armed physical pushback.
