The golden ribbons of light stiffened under Envoy Yan’s sandals. It rang like sheet iron struck by hail.
Gravity within three hundred paces of the dropping pair doubled, then quadrupled.
Lin Ke felt the sudden downward load compress his lower-back spine, the Ashen Iron lattice inside his spine bones grinding with a dry, metal creak.
Beside him, Meng Shan sank two inches into the black glass shelf, his heavy magnetic iron shield biting a trench into the stone as he braced against the surrounding crushing weight.
Elder Wu let out a high-pitched whimper. He dropped flat on his stomach. Then he pressed his sect ledgers over the back of his neck like a turtle retreating into a cracked shell.
“Stand up, Elder,” Lin Ke murmured without looking down. “A crushed spine is harder to set at this height.”
“My joint padding... My lower-back discs...” Wu wheezed into the dark rock dust. “The gravity slope violates ancient Ministry of Works safety mandates! There’s no sky rule-following certificate posted anywhere on that archway!”
Envoy Yan stopped forty paces above the floating rock, his white-and-gold cloud robes hanging perfectly motionless despite the seventy-knot crosswinds.
