Ripples spread across the surface of the city-protecting grand array.
Zhang Tie's fist pressed against the light screen. The muscles on the arm of the Golden Body Dharma Idol bulged like knotted roots, and the cyan-gold veins throbbed beneath his skin like rushing rivers.
The point of contact caved inward.
The runes flowing across the light screen instantly froze, then began to flicker wildly.
The energy structures around the depression emitted an unbearable humming sound, like thousands of metal wires being pulled taut at the exact same time.
The hemispherical dome formed by the entire array began to tremble, radiating visible ripples downward from its highest peak. The bricks at the base of the city wall showered down debris, and dust rose from the gaps between the battlements.
In the streets of the city, the star beasts raised their heads.
The trembling light screen reflected in their pupils. Some of them unconsciously dug their front paws into the stone slabs of the ground, leaving deep gouges behind.
A low, rumbling sound issued from the throats of others, the instinctive guttural noise of tension. No one spoke; all eyes remained fixed on that single fist and the ever-expanding depression at its tip.
The Xuanwu Warship hovered mid-air, everyone on the deck silent.
San Mu pressed both hands against the ship's railing, his knuckle joints slightly pale from exertion. A gray-robed old man stood to his right, his eyelids half-drooped, but his peripheral vision remained locked onto the shifting changes of the grand array.
One breath.
The depth of the depression increased by three zhang. The internal structure of the light screen began to appear, composed of countless intersecting patterns, and cracks now emerged along the edges of those figures. The spreading cracks carried a sound of fine, splintering bursts, like ice