The diamond-tipped sonic trephine drill touched the black outer-brain surface of the ancient thigh bone with a high-pitched, singing hum that echoed through the vast cathedral dome.
Arthur held the air-powered driver with locked forearms. His shoulders took in the micro-shakes of forty-two thousand cycles per second. Beneath the cutting bit, a fine, sparkling dust of pure lapis-blue iron-hard metal stone-glass sprayed into the empty pocket collection shroud, venting into a sterile glass canister at Arthur’s hip.
“Holding pressure at twelve pounds,” Arthur narrated calmly into his razor-sharp log. “Cooling line active. Grimm, initiate gravity seal.”
Grimm sat pressed against the base of the bone, his eyes glowing with deep violet fire. The hound focused his internal Fenrir aura into a narrow, ball-shaped gravity clamp centered exactly on the drill site. The nearby field prevented the hyperbaric gases inside the marrow canal from decompressing prematurely. He held the ancient marrow in a state of suspended sky balance.
Tiny fraction of an inch by tiny fraction of an inch, the diamond cutter progressed through the ultra-dense bone wall:
At exactly one hundred and forty-a tiny fraction of an inch of depth, the pushback against the drill bit suddenly dropped to zero.
