T-Minus five minutes.
The sky above the Demon Trial Valley had ceased to be sky. It was a blazing bright ceiling of crackling violet star-fire that hissed with nonstop, silent static-electric discharges. The air smelled of scorched quartz and ozone so packed it tasted like cold copper on the back of Lin Tao’s tongue.
On the floating platforms, the three great Water-Scrying Mirrors began to ripple wildly, their polished liquid silver surfaces throwing off uneven ripples as high-energy magnetic pulses from the dropping daemon swept through the volcano bowl.
“What’s happening to the scrying mirrors?” an elder from the Flying Crane Abbey shouted, rising from his seat in alarm. “The spiritual reflections are distorting! The leylines are wild!”
“Maintain the arrays!” Grand Elder Meng roared, his long white beard whipping in a sudden, unnatural downdraft that blew outward from the center of the plaza. “Sound the trial horns! Let the students prepare for entry!”
A pair of massive bronze horns sounded from the platform stone railings, their mournful, deep tones echoing through the valley.
At the base of the hundred-floor megalith, a low, underground shaking hummed through the black glass flat stone slabs. Deep within the mountain, ancient Precursor hydraulics groaned to life after a decade of sleep. A line of pale green glyphs ignited along the top door beam of the grand southern portal. The huge sixty-foot star-iron drop-gate began to shudder.
