The world above Mount Taiyi fell into total, clockwork total numbness.
The Seventh-Rank Patch Daemon was frozen in mid-motion, suspended exactly two inches above the central granite stone base. Its right gauntlet was locked in a forward thrust, the hard-light blade having dissolved into a faint, stationary halo of spark-charged purple gas. Its left hand was clawed in an uncompleted spell gesture, its fingers rigid as cast lead.
Even the six orbiting eight-sided shields had ceased their rotation.
They hung suspended in an uneven ellipse around the daemon’s shoulders, frozen at odd angles like coins glued to invisible glass. Faint scanlines of leftover light rippled across their semi-clear surfaces every twenty-four split seconds. But they made no sound. The ringing chime that had scraped against Lin Tao’s teeth for the past hour was gone, replaced by the howling of the natural alpine gale.
Lin Tao approached the stone base, his land-mapper metal pen held ready.
The heat streaming from the daemon’s open chest was intense. It felt like an open blast fire in the dead of winter. A wave of white-hot, dry air washed over Lin Tao’s face. It carried the bitter chemical stench of boiled away star-fallen nickel and molten heat padding resin. His hardened collarbone throbbed faintly, but his breathing was calm and steady.
