Before the first red beam shot into the clouds, Lin Tao stood upon the outer gatehouse, his four-inch land-mapper metal pen in his scarred hand.
He pressed the star-white-gold needle a tiny fraction of an inch into his right thumb callus until the familiar dark bead of blood welled against the gray metal.
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His senses remained grounded in the cold granite of the castle walls, anticipating the final desperate gamble of the throne.
Deep within the Forbidden Inner Citadel, in the giant stone Grand Hall of the Supreme Pole, the silence was shattered by the wild chime of nine thousand golden panic bells.
The throne room was a cavernous monument to thirty thousand years of total tyranny. Four hundred arm-lengths long, walled in black dark rock inlaid with gold sky charts. Then he supported by seventy-two massive stone pillars of carved star-iron. At the far end of the hall, resting upon a nine-tiered dais of pure sky jade, stood the Dragon Throne of Heaven.
Upon that throne sat Emperor Xuan Hao, the Supreme Sovereign of the Continental Heavens.
For ten thousand years, Emperor Xuan Hao had not moved from that seat. Clad in robes of woven solar fire, his eyes burning with the cold, arrogant light of an ancient demigod who believed the universe was his personal inheritance, he had watched dynasties rise and crumble like dust beneath his footstool.
