The blueprint laid across the massive slate table was sixteen feet long. It was drawn on thick, oil-treated ox hide that smelled of cedar varnish and coal tar.
Lin Ke leaned over the map, his blistered right hand resting flat against the table. Meanwhile, his left hand clamped an ice compress against his scorched ribs.
Elder Wu paced wildly around the outer edge of the room, wringing his hands until the skin was raw.
“Sixty percent,” Wu muttered, his voice cracking like dry kindling. “The Great Iron Vein produces sixty percent of all high-grade spirit ore for the entire Iron Sword Province! The Imperial Armory, the Core Elder swordsmiths, the country border castle walls—they all run on this iron! If the Blood Lotus injects their corrupted blood-oil into the bedrock, the stone matrix will rot from the inside out!”
“What’s the contamination timeline?” Lin Ke asked, his grey eyes scanning the underground cross-sections.
“Two hundred years!” Wu howled, clutching his head. “Two hundred years of acid-burning, rotting runoff! The ore will become brittle as rotten chalk! And the Sect Disciplinary Hall won’t conduct an audit, Lin Ke—they will execute every office officer within fifty miles for dereliction of sovereign defense! That means me! That means my pension! Thirty-four years of flawless filing, ended by a decapitation array!”
