Stone ground violently against stone, metal screamed as structural rivets snapped, and the scalding geyser blasted from the ruptured pipe, choking the vault in an acrid haze. Maliwan’s brass chronometer whistled on her wrist, its copper gears spinning until the dials clicked past the final hour down to '0'.
Then the floor beneath them split along a hairline fissure. The crack ripped wide across the polished granite as the pagoda's hollow core shuddered. A concussive roar surged up from the deep shaft, carrying the orange glare of boiling magma from the continent's exposed engine.
“The tectonic bypass sheared through!” Maliwan shouted, gripping the humming core. “The lower chambers are collapsing!”
Prince Virote gripped his singed silk mantle against the rising heat blast. “By the Seven Sun-Nagas… the mantle is caving in!”
Swordmaster Kiet reached for his blade, jaw tight as the trench widened beneath his boots. The chasm widened, separating them from the still-glowing Mandala Heart. The ground directly beneath them began to buckle, huge slabs of the vault floor tilting precariously. The glowing core, cradled by Maliwan and Gawin, rested on a shelf of stone slanting toward the fiery shaft.
As the rift sheared the floor in half, stranding Kiet and Virote on the higher ledge, both men locked eyes on Maliwan.
“Hold the rim!” Virote bellowed. He plunged his hands into the crumbling rock face of his side of the chasm, his cultivation flaring to an impossible degree. Veins pulsed like ropes under his skin, and a blinding aura of azure energy erupted from him, flowing into the very stone. He was physically trying to hold the continent together.
Kiet, on the opposite side, mirrored him without a word. His cultivation, a vortex of emerald power, slammed into the rock, his muscles screaming. His back bowed, his feet dug trenches into the stone, but he held. This was no drainage trench; the sheer tectonic pressure demanded every scrap of his internal reserves. He was a living buttress, holding back the tectonic plates from grinding the continent into dust.
“Maliwan! Go!” Virote coughed through gritted teeth. “Reach the primary base!”
“We’re falling!” Gawin shrieked. The section of the vault they stood on detached completely, plunging them into the infernal depths. A massive, cylindrical piece of stupa debris, dislodged from the Chedi’s upper tiers, smashed through the ceiling above them, then began to tumble downwards just ahead. It was still intact enough to offer a temporary platform. Maliwan, thinking fast, grabbed Gawin’s arm. “Quickly! To that debris!”
They jumped, clearing the gap through the scorch of rising air. Maliwan crashed onto the descending stupa slab, knees skidding, while Gawin slammed against an ornamental lotus relief. The air around them shimmered with heat, the stench of sulfur and burning stone assaulting their senses. Above them, Virote and Kiet were shrinking rapidly, their auras still stubbornly, impossibly holding back the cataclysm.
“The primary array plinth lies at the lowest tier!” Maliwan shouted over the deafening downdraft, pointing downward. The abyss stretched into incomprehensible blackness, occasionally illuminated by bursts of magma. “We have to slot the Heart before the main structure disintegrates!”
Gawin pulled out his set of polished bone scribing tools, his hands moving with frantic precision. “The descent speed is too fast! The array runes will incinerate before we reach the base!” He pointed to the faint, spiraling patterns on the stupa debris around them, which were indeed beginning to blister and fade under the intense thermal assault. He steadied his grip against the shaking stone. “I can scribe over the burnout! Direct the flow!”
Maliwan tapped the scorched masonry. “The Coiling Serpent line along this ridge! Celestial Bloom on the opposite flank!” “And the ‘Celestial Bloom’ on the opposing side!”
With a nod, Gawin plunged his bone stylus into a vial of phosphorescent ink, then began to furiously etch the complex geometric patterns onto the scorching stone. His movements were a blur, his small body a shield, placing himself between Maliwan and the most intense heat, his thin robes beginning to smolder. Gawin’s phosphorescent strokes caught fire in neon green, linking the drifting masonry directly to the humming Heart in Maliwan’s grip. The slab shuddered, leveling out into a steep glide rather than a blind tumble.
They plunged further and further, past ancient, obsidian-dark caverns, past veins of glowing crystal, until at last, a faint light appeared below. A massive, circular platform anchored the center of the subterranean vault: the primary array dais. It was riddled with intricate, faded carvings, and at its heart, a single, Heart-shaped indentation.
Their rock section collided with the platform edge, grinding to a violent halt. Maliwan and Gawin tumbled, landing hard against the cold, unyielding stone. Gawin coughed, then scrambled to his feet, still clutching his tools. Maliwan, her arms aching, held the pulsating Mandala Heart aloft. Her gaze locked onto the insertion slot. It was the right shape, the right size, undeniable.
She rushed forward, but skidded to a halt. The receiving slot was choked solid with centuries of glassy, petrified slag.