The domain dropped not with sound, but with the sudden, terrifying cessation of weight.
A grayish-white dome of light slammed over the White Jade Plaza. It locked the five-mile radius inside an iron-hard spirit boundary. The surrounding air turned the color of tarnished pewter. The morning sun vanished behind a ceiling of swirling, unbending script.
Grand Elder Feng Xuan floated at the epicenter, his eyes reflecting no light.
He pointed a single finger toward the ground.
“Bind the movement of all things. Let friction be total.”
*
Across the five-mile expanse, fifteen thousand fighters froze.
It wasn’t ice magic. It wasn’t total numbness of the nervous system.
