The needle-point of the star-white-gold metal pen sank exactly three tiny fractions of an inch into the linked lead grout between the dark rock flat stone slabs.
CLINK.
The sound was tiny, almost absurd in the face of the roaring crushing force wave tearing toward them. Yet the pure-crystal metal pen contacted the underground copper mesh running beneath the stone. Then, Lin Tao established a direct physical shunt.
The spatial deletion wave didn’t strike them.
At a split second, as the reality engine reached its math hitch, the expanding distortion wave met the zero-pushback ground path provided by Lin Tao’s metal pen. The tearing spatial rift wildly twisted ninety degrees to the left, diverted along the copper bus trace like lightning following an iron rod through a summer thunderstorm.
CRACK-BOOM!
The redirected deletion wave slammed harmlessly into the heavy granite pillar supporting the southern balcony, chewing a four-foot half-round notch out of the ancient stone before evaporating into harmless gray static.
Chunks of crushed granite rained down onto the empty marble floor, clattering like hail across the vast circular chamber. A fine mist of stone dust billowed upward. It caught the golden beams of the rotating ceiling rings and cast long, hazy sunbeams across the empty space between the mortals and the gods.
