The image cut out again.
This segment had lasted the longest.
Copper Pillars rose from the ground, holding up the space above.
One after another, they stretched endlessly, countless Copper Pillars arranged within the rock formations surrounding The Abyss.
Inscriptions lit up across every pillar at once. Patterns spread from the surface of each pillar, connecting, weaving, and converging into an enormous net of light that covered the entire underground space.
The light extended all the way up from the depths below.
Scalding molten copper was poured over the tops of the rock formations. The liquid copper flowed along the rock surface, solidified and tightened, locking together with the underground Copper Pillars.
At last, the city walls took shape.
The inscription patterns ran from the city walls all the way to the underground network of Copper Pillars, making the entire sealed structure a seamless whole.
Then Lu Yuan saw that man.
He stood among the Copper Pillars. His face was swallowed by copper-colored light, his features impossible to make out; only his silhouette remained.
He clutched something in his hand.
That thing was glowing. A faint copper-colored light seeped through his fingers, identical to the color of the inscriptions.
The man raised his hand.
The copper light suddenly intensified.
The inscriptions on the city walls lit up, the inscriptions on the Copper Pillars lit up, and beneath the ground, deep within the rock formations, every pattern lit up at once. Copper-colored light shone up from underground, passing through rock and soil to illuminate the entire place.
The entire net was operating.
The whole city was responding to the thing in his hand.
The man did not move.
Copper light flickered between his fingers. He lowered his head to look at what he held, his body utterly still.
Then he clenched