The Celestial Void Skiff hovered thirty feet above the dark rock crag, its golden hull humming like an angry hornet.
This was not a self-running border drone. Standing upon the raised command bridge at the stern stood a senior Void Warden. A tall, haughty fighter clad in stitched azure silk robes over segmented star-brass armor. At his waist hung a curved Daoist cleaver, and in his right hand he held an Eighth-Rank Gravity Crushing weight Magic charm. It glowed with an intense, pulsing violet radiance.
Beside the warden stood two junior guards armed with heavy wind-fire crossbows, their jade sights trained directly on Lin Tao and Tie Shan.
“Halt, anomalous vermin!” the Void Warden boomed, his voice magnified by an internal spiritual amplification array that rolled across the barren rocks like thunder. “You stand at the forbidden boundary of the Central Heavens! By decree of the Emperor of the Celestial Court, any mortal approaching the Great Deep gap is guilty of high treason and spatial heresy!”
Lin Tao didn’t run, nor did he reach for a weapon.
He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his charcoal coat flapping in the dry, artificial wind. Beside him, Tie Shan gripped the star-iron pry-bar in his right hand, his body coiled like a steel spring. It waited for Lin Tao’s signal.
