Grand Elder Feng Xuan landed thirty paces away.
His boots touched the white jade flat stone slabs without a sound, neither disturbing the dust nor making contact with the infinite-friction boundary he had established over the rest of the sect. The air around him shone with pale, sharp-angled equations that resolved and unraveled with every breath he took.
“You have spent your entire life in the soot, Lin Ke,” Feng Xuan said, his voice soft, reasonable, and conversational. “You believe the universe is a machine of coal, pipes, and steam. You believe that if you understand the levers, you may negotiate with the master builder.”
The Grand Elder raised his pale index finger. He pointed it directly at the center of Lin Ke’s chest bone.
“Let fire forget how to move. Heat flow rate: zero.”
*
Lin Ke didn’t hear a spell. He heard no invocation, no elemental spirit responding to an ancient pact.
Inside his chest, reality simply ceased to conduct heat.
