The purple mist that blinded Elder Qian was a see-through, wireframe grid to Lin Tao’s test left eye.
Lin Tao moved through the knee-deep water without creating a single ripple. In suspended breathing frozen stillness, his body radiated zero heat exhaust. Without breath, his chest was fully still. That let him glide across the flooded white jade floor like a ghost navigating a sunken crypt.
Beside him, Tie Shan moved with equal stealth. His twelve-pound pry-bar was held low against his thigh, his bare bronze skin untouched by the acidic yellow foam floating on the water.
They reached the base of the eastern service ladder. An upright iron framework leading sixty feet up to the narrow high walkway where the four heavy steel crossbow archers were preparing their recovery hooks.
The four-foot star-copper channel was slick with water drops. But Lin Tao’s iron-toed boots found immediate, secure purchase along the riveted mounting seams. He climbed with the fluid, easy agility of an experienced high-sky land-mapper who had spent years crossing load-bearing work frames in toxic heavy-duty plants. In the complete sense deprivation of the purple mist, his test left eye was an infallible navigational compass, rendering every pipe, every bolt, and every enemy hitbox in crisp, glowing cyan wireframes.
