The air above the lower foundries was deceptively clean.
Leaving the sulfuric smog of Foundry Nine, the upkeep service ramps climbed through layers of condensed sky mist into the Central Monolith Plaza of the Ninth Heavenly Court. Here, the floor was not rusted iron or pitted bronze. But polished white marble inlaid with nested bands of current-carrying silver filigree.
At the center of the vast, circular plaza stood the heart of the Heavenly Dao’s judgment: the Primordial Jade Monolith of Tribulation Laws.
It was a staggering spire. Three hundred feet tall, carved from a single slab of semi-clear, pale-green sky green jade. Through its glassy depths pulsed billions of micro-carved golden runes. He flickered like living-glow deep-sea creatures caught inside a frozen waterfall.
Between the outer edge gate and the monolith marched twelve Divine Golden Guards.
They were twelve-foot-tall automatons forged from pure solar brass, their faces smooth and featureless except for a single glowing quartz eye array that swept the plaza with fans of amber light. Each carried a two-handed axe-spear humming with eighth-tier divine thunder.
“Fifth-rank clearance needed,” Wu DeZheng whispered, his face pressed against the cold stone of the drainage under-road drain behind Lin Ke. “Anyone stepping onto the marble without an Imperial Seal of the Ministry of Rites is boiled away on sight. Even a stray sparrow gets hit with three hundred thousand volts.”
