The transition from absolute, pristine security to a suffocating, lethal snare happened in a fraction of a millisecond.
As Shangguan Wan'er, the undisputed Mistress of the Golden-Scale Auction House, took her first confident steps into the expansive main courtyard of the Ice Heart Pavilion, the trap was definitively sprung. The heavy, reinforced spirit-wood doors, banded with profound cold-iron and inscribed with countless defensive runes, slammed shut behind her and her two elite guards with a resounding, thunderous boom that shook the very foundations of the courtyard. The intricate, interlocking locking mechanisms engaged simultaneously with a series of heavy, final clacks that sounded less like a door closing and more like the sealing of an ancient, inescapable tomb.
