For forty minutes, Lin Tao remained motionless beneath the dark rock overhang, his left eye recording the rhythmic pulse of the swirling vortex above.
Outside their rock shelter, the nine-peak proving ground had become a cathedral of whirling silver. The blades didn’t drift at random through the freezing mountain mist. They moved in precise, nested sky-high bands. Ninety nested rings of spirit swords, each ring spinning counter to its immediate neighbor. That created a hypnotic gyroscopic cage that locked the surrounding airspace in an iron-hard grip.
Every time the outermost ring completed a quarter-rotation, a deep, ringing tone echoed across the mountain peaks, like an iron temple bell struck beneath three deep-water lengths of ice-slow water.
Lin Tao clocked the interval with his internal frame analyzer. He watched the split second counter scroll across his eye.
“Look at the shift seams,” Lin Tao whispered to Tie Shan. He pointed his land-mapper metal pen toward the junction between the sixth and seventh sky-high rings. “Watch the moment Ring Six passes its northern zenith. The blades don’t change their angle at the same time.”
Tie Shan squinted into the dazzling silver glare, his brow furrowing as he shielded his eyes with his calloused hand. “A slight shimmer,” the giant said.
