Chapter 12
The Guardian's Test
Chen Yunfei · 4.6K words · ~19 min read
Chapter 12: The Guardian's Test
The guardian did not rush.
That was the first cruelty of it—not speed but certainty, the way a river does not rush to reach the sea and yet always arrives. Chen Yunfei felt the hollow sphere of nothing collapse against his anchor and fold, felt his ribs grind with the aftershock of the refusal at his sternum, and understood in the same breath that the construct had only been measuring his height. The vault's silver lines burned steady in the pillars. The pool at the guardian's feet lay flat as poured metal. Above, through stone and cypress and miles of forest he could not see, dusk had come and gone while he stood in a light that had never known sun.