The climb from Watchpost Seven to the high ridge of Boundary Pylon Three was a steep, grueling ascent through shattered granite boulders and wind-stunted mountain pines.
Captain Zhao had offered two junior guards as “guides,” but Lin Tao had waved them aside with a single gesture. An clerk didn’t allow the custodian of a malfunctioning asset to dictate the path of check.
Lin Tao and Tie Shan crested the rocky ridge. Then, the sheer massive scale of the Precursor installation unfolded before them.
Boundary Pylon Three was not a mere watchtower. It was an ancient technological obelisk standing ninety feet tall, cast from a seamless monolith of dark star-iron that showed neither rivet nor weld. For eight hundred years, it had anchored the southern outer edge of the Azure Cloud Sect, drinking spiritual current from the deep underground ley-lines and projecting a massive hemispherical barrier of golden force across forty leagues of alpine wilderness.
Lin Tao approached the western face of the obelisk, his fingers lightly brushing the cold metal surface.
Under the gray mountain light, the entire face of the star-iron monolith was covered in tiny Precursor circuit traces, each etched less than a hair’s width into the dark alloy and filled with silver-liquid silver solder. These were not mystical sigils created by chanting sages. They were high-hum signal buses designed to synchronize the pylon with its six sister towers across the mountain range. Yet hundreds of years of neglect were written into the stone. Sulfur deposits had pitted the silver solder, while repeated ungrounded lightning strikes had left dark, dendritic burns across the lower logic panels.
Yet today, the great monument looked like a sick titan.
At its pinnacle, where a massive faceted sphere of yellow spirit-crystal was suspended within an iron gimbal, the protective light was spasming erratically. Instead of a steady, radiant dome, the barrier was a stuttering veil of amber static, pulsing with an unstable, high-pitched whine that set Lin Tao’s teeth on edge.
Lin Tao stopped ten paces from the base of the pylon, his left eye flaring with brilliant emerald test vectors:
The numbers were unambiguous. The pylon was not failing because of deep-rock movement or ancient rock fatigue, as the sect’s unfit formation masters had claimed in their official reports.
It was suffering from a massive, secret leech-like draw that was bleeding thirty-four percent of its running current into an external circuit.
Lin Tao raised his right hand. The scars across his palm from the melted rock waste pit lightning bypass throbbed with a faint, sympathetic heat, resonating with the heavy magnetic flux leaking from the base of the obelisk. His fully knit left collar bone felt solid and iron-hard under his linen tunic. He anchored his physical stance as the mountain wind howled across the ledge.
“Tie Shan,” Lin Tao said quietly.
“Here,” the giant rumbled. He set down his heavy wicker pack with a dull thud upon the shale.
“Clear the gravel around the western foundation stone base,” Lin Tao ordered. “The Precursor blueprints specify a clean bedrock ground. Someone has buried an unshielded tap beneath the scree.”
Tie Shan gripped his twelve-pound iron pry-bar with both hands, wedged the chisel point beneath a half-ton slab of fallen granite, and heaved.
CRACK!
With a bone-shaking grunt that rippled the muscles across his broad back, Tie Shan flipped the massive boulder down the slope like a child tossing a pebble. He plunged the iron bar into the loose gray scree, shoveling away hundreds of years of piled up gravel in swift, rhythmic strokes that would have taken four mortal laborers half a day.
In less than three minutes, the true foundation of the pylon was exposed.
Beneath the natural shale lay an ancient check trench lined with glass-fused Precursor tiles. And resting inside the trench, bolted directly into the main copper grounding bus with crude, hand-forged bronze clamps, were two thick cables of braided copper wire.
The cables were an insult to building. They were bare, wrapped in decaying oiled cloth, and hissing with purple sun-fire discharge that scorched the surrounding stone into black melted rock waste.
Lin Tao knelt beside the trench. He drew the four-inch cold-drawn steel land-mapper metal pen from his hip sheath. He hovered the sharp plumb point two inches above the braided cable, using his body as a high-flow pushback capacitive probe.
A sharp, familiar sound hum rang through the steel shaft into his fingers:
Fourteen point two cycles. Pulse. Silence. Pulse.
It was a timed together, artificial back-and-forth swing.
“Not just a power drain tube,” Lin Tao murmured. His test vision tracked the microvolt modulation along the copper braid. “They’re modulating the carrier wave. Someone is using the sect’s defensive barrier as a signal antenna.”
Behind them, the sound of heavy boots crunching over the loose gravel signaled the arrival of Captain Zhao and four heavily armed guards. Their faces were flushed from the steep climb, their hands resting on their saber handles.
Zhao’s smile had vanished, replaced by a dark, twitching scowl of hungry alarm.
“Inspector Lin!” Zhao called out, his voice sharp with strained power. “I must advise you to step away from the foundation stone base! The Grand Defensive Pylon is an ancient, sacred relic! Disturbing the sacred stones can trigger a sky backlash that will burn up your flesh!”
Tie Shan stood up slowly from the trench, his twelve-pound iron pry-bar resting across his broad shoulder, his dark eyes fixing upon Zhao with the unblinking, heavy threat of an avalanche waiting to fall.
Lin Tao didn’t look back. He kept his eyes locked on the braided copper cables, his land-mapper metal pen hovering over the leaking seam.
“A sacred relic doesn’t run on braided copper cables forged in an outer valley blacksmith shop, Captain Zhao,” Lin Tao said, his voice cutting through the wind like a frozen blade. “Tell me: where does this line lead?”