High above the Desolation of the Nine Pillars, the golden light of the Nine-Dragon Barrier took on a desperate, feverish intensity.
From the underground vaults beneath the Great Golden Bastion, massive air-powered channels opened, dumping millions of high-grade sky spirit stones into the burning furnaces of the nine dragon cores. Great plumes of violet, emerald, and crimson Qi erupted into the stratosphere, feeding hundreds of thousands of units of pure spiritual power directly into the struggling firewall engines. The roar of the furnaces sounded like ten volcanoes erupting at the same time behind the clouds.
Inside Trench Sector 04, Lin Tao watched the sudden surge of sky Qi through his test sight array.
One million two hundred thousand spirit stones per minute, Lin Tao observed with cold, detached delight. The Imperial Consistory is attempting to brute-force a software stonework defect with raw energetic throughput. They’re throwing their empire’s strategic reserves into the fire, hoping to process their way through an infinite queue.
Lin Tao lowered his land-mapper metal pen and looked along the mortal trenches.
Beside him, two young apprentices from the Taiyi quarries were casually taking turns pumping the star-iron shutter lever on Mirror Unit 214. One boy rested his arm, sipping cold well water from a clay pot cup. Meanwhile, the other pushed the lever with a relaxed flick of his wrist, keeping time with the chiming water-clock.
