The cold granite of Console B-02 shook against Lin Ke’s blistered palms like an idling locomotive.
Every muscle across his shoulders burned with the deep, throbbing soreness of a spark shock victim, his newly forged Fourth Turn pulsing steadily in his belly like an iron flywheel. Through his charred boots, he could feel the underground earth-shaking hum of the Iron Rift. Not uneven and violent as it had been during the Ghost Tide. But heavy, high-pressure, and dangerously constrained, like steam building behind a seized boiler cap.
Above them, through the vast upright air-flow shafts, the muffled roar of horns echoed down from the surface.
“Downstream panic,” Shen Yue said, her head tilted toward the distant ceiling.
Her two timed together divine sense threads dipped into the comms magic charms fluttering at her hip. “The sects of the Southern Basin have spotted the surge. The Five Peaks Pavilion and the Crimson Sand Sect think the main junction has suffered a fatal meltdown. They’re mobilizing their elders to drop the emergency water gate gates along the country border!”
“If they drop those water gates, the line cuts dead,” Meng Shan rumbled, his heavy brow furrowing as he leaned against his iron pry bar. “What happens then?”
