The air began to smell like burnt sugar and white-hot glass.
High above the vault portal, sixteen huge bronze nozzles protruded from the ceiling vaults. Inside their hollow bellies, rings of violet void-spark star-fire were spinning up with a piercing ringing scream that shook in Lin Ke’s dental fillings.
“Eight minutes,” Lin Ke said, his voice flat and measured despite the cold sweat dripping into his eyebrows.
“We’re doomed,” Elder Wu wailed, sinking onto his knees amidst his scattered scrolls. “Five hundred million years! The Ministry of Heavenly Works fell when the First Immortals shattered the Jade Canopy! Where are we to find a three-rank seal from an extinct dynasty?”
“Stop sniveling, Wu,” Apothecary He snapped, kicking the elder’s shin with the toe of his boot. “If we’re going to be turned into purple grease, at least die sitting on your ledgers like an honest thief.”
Meng Shan stepped forward, inspecting the three-foot-thick bronze walls flanking the console. “Brother, can we dig around it? My grounding pikes can break five feet of dark rock in ten minutes.”
“This isn’t dark rock,” Lin Ke said, placing his right palm against the end-post surface. “It’s crushed-star matter bonded with high-thickness karmic locks. If you hit it with an iron hammer, the striking force reflects back into your chest bone at four times the speed.”
