The seventy-second hour ended not with a bell, but with the sky turning to molten gold.
The thin empty pocket above the black glass outcrop caught fire.
Thick, blazing bright clouds composed of tightly packed sky star-fire billowed out from the pillars of the Ascension Gateway. It rolled over the high sky like a burning sea.
The heat was choking.
Even at one hundred thousand feet, the radiant heat spiked past three hundred degrees in seconds. That turned the frost on Lin Ke’s sleeves into hissing steam.
“Time’s up,” Apothecary He croaked, strapping his medicine chests to his back with double-knotted hemp ropes.
Meng Shan stood in front of the camp, his wide back bowed under the crushing spiritual pressure, both hands clamped to the rim of his newly repaired shield.
Shen Yue had eight silver magic charms hovering around her head in an active orbit, her twin brushes poised, all four processing threads locked in a defensive exact timing loop.
