The ocular vortex of azure and silver compressed its lethal force. A soundless roar echoed through the very fabric of reality, not heard by mortal ears, but felt as a crushing weight against every soul on the Qimen Star-Pavilion. A blinding spear of pure retributive force, burning with the heat of a collapsed star, erupted from the eye's tempestuous iris. It plunged toward Song Moyou fast enough to warp the surrounding air, bent on wiping her out to unravel her heresy. Song Moyou, meanwhile, had been idly contemplating the precise resonant frequency needed to destabilize the dimensional wards of the newly discovered vault. The incoming celestial projectile was an irritating distraction. Her gaze drifted toward a gaudy, gilded sky-coach hovering near the edge of the terrace. Its owner, a haughty young master from the rival Cloudstrider Citadel, was preening before junior disciples in robes stitched with cut gems. With a sigh, Moyou extended a finger. A faint ripple creased the air. Space around the ostentatious vehicle warped, folding inward. One second, the craft hovered above the edge; the next, it was gone. It hung directly between Moyou and the incoming spear of divine fire, its polished chassis catching the glare. “My—my Sun-Chariot of the Dawn!” the young noble shrieked, stumbling backward over his pearl-sewn boots. “What in the name of the Celestial Sovereigns did you do, you fiend?!” Before he finished sputtering, the retribution lance struck. It took the gilded vehicle amid a shriek of tearing brass that eclipsed the sun. The coach, built from refined alloys and aged wards, did not simply shatter; it unraveled into vaporized gold and settling ash. The sound was not an explosion, but a high-pitched whine, like the universe itself was being unstitched. When the flare died, nothing remained of the coach save the stink of scorched cedar and ozone. The massive pupil overhead contracted, briefly dimming before locking onto Moyou again. Hundun, who had been lazily orbiting Moyou’s shoulder, twitched his whiskers. His nose wrinkled, sniffing the air, then his eyes, like twin pools of shadow, lit up with eager greed. He launched himself from Moyou’s shoulder, a dark blur snapping up the lingering wisps of raw Qi. The fragments of the pulverized coach vanished into Hundun's gaping maw like hot cinder flakes. Each gulp was accompanied by a contented rumbling from his small, round belly. “My carriage!” the boy wailed, voice cracking. “A thousand years of savings went into that hull! You ruined me!” Moyou ignored him. The celestial watcher began gathering another, denser lance. The buildup dragged, as if recalibrating its geometry. That left plenty of time. She took a single, deliberate step forward, her focus now entirely on the ground beneath her feet. The first dark sigil branded across her wrist pulsed in sync with her mental projection. A lattice, visible only to her, overlaid the weathered courtyard flagstones. She targeted the convergence seam of the vault's barrier and pulled. Space groaned. A section of flagstones sank with eerie fluidness, as though granite had turned to liquid grease. A spiraling violet rift opened toward the depths. Without a glance toward the bawling young master or the charging celestial orb above, Moyou dropped into the rift. Hundun, finishing the last of the glittering debris with a satisfied burp, zipped into her shadow, vanishing just before the portal sealed shut behind her with a soft *thrum*. The descent was brief, a dizzying plunge through shifting dimensions, before she landed softly on a crystalline floor. The air tasted of cold rust and old tallow. Before her stood an enormous circular hatch shining with a sickly crimson light. Binding glyphs coated its plate in dried gore. It was designed to repel, to deter, to break the will of any who dared approach. Moyou merely tilted her head. Blood-magic was inherently inefficient, its power derived from raw emotion and brute force rather than elegant mathematical principles. She extended a hand, not to touch, but to *read* the array. Her eyes unfocused slightly, perceiving the molecular structure of the blood-hardened door. It wasn't truly metal, but an alchemical construct, a dense weave of spiritualized iron and coagulated essence. With a twitch of her fingers, she began rewriting the barrier's structural formula. The crimson illumination sputtered out. The runes, once vibrant with malevolent power, faded into dull, brittle lines. The blood-magic didn’t explode, didn’t resist. It simply… changed. The dense iron-and-blood weave became porous, then translucent, then finally, clear and fragile as spun sugar. The once-solid slab turned to brittle, rose-tinted sugar glass. She gave it a light nudge. It fractured inward with a thin chime, exposing the chamber. Inside, the air hummed with dormant power. This was not a mere storage chamber, but a vast, circular laboratory. Shelves lined with unlabeled scrolls stretched to the vaulted ceiling. Ornate, untouched spirit-forges sat silent. Floating diagrams of impossible geometries and stellar charts drifted in the dim air. This was her past self’s domain, a sanctum of forbidden research. The very air vibrated with the ghost of her own furious intellect. Moyou walked past rows of enigmatic artifacts, her eyes scanning. She stopped before a central dais bearing a massive, layered version of the forbidden sigil. Touching its cold stone released a rush of proofs and theorems into her mind: proofs exposing the firmament's parasitic siphon on the Cangxi Realm. These figures were not mere wards, but coordinates for an excision designed to shear the realm clean off the cosmic leech. “Moyou! What have you done?!” The voice, choked with horror, echoed from the shattered glass doorway. Shen Tulie stood there, his face ashen, the fragments of the Heavenly Prophecy jade slip still clutched in his trembling hand. He had clearly followed her, likely drawn by the residual chaos above. His stare swept from the altered wards to the fractured door, then locked onto the glowing diagram before her. “This is madness! The ancestral prophecies forbid this research! You will rip the continent apart!” As if on cue, the entire vault shuddered. The shattered glass door, which had merely been an entrance, now sealed itself with an audible *click*, becoming a solid, impenetrable wall of force. Through the crystalline ceiling above, a torrent of azure retribution began to drill. The Heavenly Eye, having recalibrated, was not just targeting Moyou anymore. It was targeting *this entire location*, attempting to purge the blasphemy. The chamber thundered as overhead stone cracked, air thickening with ozone before the strike. Shen Tulie shouted as a discharge struck inches from his boots, singeing his hem. He hit the stone on one knee, staring at her through the haze. He was the original protagonist, the one destined to save the realm. Yet now, trapped in this accelerating abyss of her making, he was utterly helpless, another variable in her complex equation. Moyou checked the next sub-tier diagram etched on the plinth, its dense matrix awaiting translation. The calculations, the truth, were so close. But so was the screaming, pathetic mess of her senior brother. Saving him would take time, effort, and undoubtedly, stall her progress. Letting him die, however, would simplify things immensely. The overhead storm flared blindingly, washing the chamber in brilliant blue and forcing her hand.

Void Badger Etiquette