Reflection

It was neither the chill of metal nor the warmth of jade, but the chill of "emptiness."

Like touching a mirror no one had ever touched, like touching a pool of water no wind had ever rippled.

The power of order surged from his palm like a burst dam, like erupting magma.

Gray-gold light seeped inward along the patterns on the stone stele's surface.

The dark-red runes trembled violently beneath the impact of the power of order, like lamps swaying in the wind. Their glow shifted from steady to flickering, from flickering to dim.

The two forces clashed madly within the stone stele.

The power of order was "eroding"; the power of the abyss was "counter-eroding."

Gray-gold and dark-red light intertwined, collided, devoured, and annihilated one another within the stele.

With every collision, the stele trembled slightly. The tremors grew faster and faster, from once per breath to ten times per breath, from ten times per breath to a hundred times per breath.

Cracks began to appear across the stele's surface.

They spread outward from Chu Ming's palm, dense as a spiderweb.

Some were as fine as hairs; others were as wide as fingers.

Deep within the cracks, gray-gold light burned like golden snakes slithering through the stone stele.

Chu Ming left a thread of the power of order deep within the stele.

That light was faint, as faint as a firefly on a winter night.

Yet it was steady, as steady as words carved into stone.

It embedded itself in the stele's core, like a seed, like a nail, like a lamp lit in the darkness.

The instant it received the signal, it would detonate.

From seed to flame, from flame to explosion.

It would blast the stele into powder from within.

Chu Ming withdrew his hand.

The instant