The last of the twelve bronze wardens collapsed onto the bloodless marble floor, its crushed thorax hissing out a final plume of freezing ectoplasmic steam.
Tie Shan stood leaning against his star-iron pry-bar, his heavy chest heaving with hard effort. A long scratch scored his left leather wrist guard where a stray chain link had grazed him. But his dense iron-bone frame was intact. He shook the black high-pressure fluid from his hands and looked across the clearing. everyone could feel the bitter smell of discharged liquid silver vapor and scorched bronze.
At the far terminus of the Grand Causeway stood the Gate of the Nine Springs Registry Core.
The doors were massive. Two towering slabs of solid Precursor bronze and black glass, forty feet tall and fifteen feet thick, set flush into the living bedrock of the underworld. Carved across their faces were fine, detailed bas-reliefs depicting the Nine Courts of Judgment. He was surrounded by linked high-pressure channels filled with liquid silver that circulated through see-through crystal channels embedded in the bronze.
Lin Tao approached the threshold, running his fingers across the cold bronze seam.
One hundred and forty metric tons of heavy alloy, Lin Tao analyzed. He measured the load-bearing limit with his brass measuring tongs. Held shut by an active high-pressure liquid silver lock high-pressure to four hundred and eighty sea-weights. There is no physical keyhole, and no spiritual magic charm array. It operates on pure fluid mechanics and internal pressure differential.
