The wind at the base of the Scripture Pavilion’s foundation was laced with the smell of scorched ozone and ancient dust.
Lin Ke stood pressed against the cold dark rock cliffside. His left shoulder locked was tight in its cedar splint, his right arm throbbing beneath layers of linen. Above him, the massive stone pagoda climbed nine stories into the freezing clouds, its black roof edges jutting out like the ribs of an overturned giant beast.
Below the surface, forty feet into the living bedrock, lay the Pavilion’s Underground Storehouse.
Between Lin Ke and the iron vault door hummed the Seven-Layer Hexagram Firewall.
It appeared as a series of seven nested rings of pale, golden light etched directly into the flat stone slabs. Each ring was suspended three inches above the stone. It spun with counter-rotating sharp-angled patterns that emitted a high, hungry whine.
If an unlisted fighter stepped within ten feet of the outer edge, the formation didn’t sound an alarm. It triggered an instant ringing discharge that boiled away organic tissue and unraveled a Nascent Soul into unallocated spiritual static.
“It runs on the Ancestral Spirit Registry,” Shen Yue whispered. She crouched beside him in the shadows. Her fingers were trembling as she held an unpainted jade magic charm blank. “Every inner elder has their soul deep ring engraved on the old family tablets. The firewall queries the registry before allowing a single breath of Qi to pass.”
