The fissure ended suddenly at the edge of an open expanse of crushed white quartz.
Before them lay a flat, gravel-strewn terrace eight hundred paces wide, fully empty of boulders, crevices, or defensive vegetation. Across this white clearing, rising like an ancient stone-hard tooth, stood the Great Boundary Pylon—a forty-foot obelisk of gray star-iron marking the total edge of the mortal realm.
Lin Tao knelt at the mouth of the fissure, his boots planted firmly against the dark stone.
Behind him, Tie Shan crouched low, his breath steady and silent. The giant’s broad face was streaked with sweat and white stone dust. But his dark eyes remained locked on the open terrace ahead.
“Too open out there,” Tie Shan murmured, his voice rumbling beneath his chest.
“A cleared killing field,” Lin Tao agreed in a low whisper. “Built during the Third Age by the Celestial Engineers. Anyone attempting to approach the boundary pylon must cross eight hundred paces of shiny quartz.”
In the sky above, the whine of the Void Skiff returned.
The vessel had completed its eight-league western loop and was returning along the patrol hall at cruising speed. Lin Tao raised his land-mapper metal pen. He held the white-gold micro-needle steady against his line of sight.
