The air in the giant stone chamber didn’t warm—it spark-charged until every hair on Lin Ke’s arms stood rigid as wire.
A dry, metal tang filled his sinuses, sharp as vinegar and twice as cold. Deep within the bedrock, three miles beneath their boots, something ancient and giant was groaning under huge water-pressure strain, shaking the heavy granite floor with a hum that set Lin Ke’s dental fillings humming in his jaw.
In the shadows near the entrance, Master Yan woke from his stupor, only to claw feebly at his throat as the air pressure plummeted.
“Lin Ke!” Shen Yue shouted, her hands clamping over her ears as the sound deep ring climbed into a painful, dog-whistle screech. “The surrounding Qi isn’t circulating anymore! It’s stagnating... No, it’s collapsing inward toward the central bus!”
Across the room, the three dozen crystal-clear racks began to thrum in ringing lockstep.
The pale green light of Console B-02 was wildly overwritten by blinding, pulsed amber runes:
“What did you do, you madman?!” Zhao Wuji shrieked from his knees in the gravel trench, his voice cracked with renewed terror. “You cut the dampening locks! The ancient pool at the capital... It’s a closed high-pressure loop! If the Northwest gate opens without back-pressure, the entire land-wide balance reflects back on itself!”
