The neural overdrive clock hit zero. Then, the world vanished into a void of static.
The sudden, violent severance of the five-pillar soul-sync network was like having five heavy high-voltage cables ripped from the back of Arthur’s skull at the same time. The sense spreading that had allowed him to see the entire cave in four dimensions collapsed inward in a heartbeat. That left his human nervous system utterly starved of bandwidth.
Arthur’s knees buckled.
His magnetic crampons disengaged from the iron-hard metal floor with a dull click. His ARC-7 Mag-Carbine slipped from his numbed fingers, clattering onto the diamond-dusted ice. A wave of deep, cold dizziness swept over his brain as his brain blood pressure plummeted from dangerous hypertension to acute blood-vessel collapse.
The sheer body cost of holding five divine consciousnesses in parallel was a huge toll that no ordinary mortal body was designed to bear. His core heat dropped three degrees in five seconds. The fight-or-flight rush burned out of his bloodstream. His breathing rattled with the shallow gasps of deep shock.
He fell forward, fully unconscious before his body could strike the stone.
He never touched the freezing ice.
Grimm was already there. With the fluid, silent grace of an ancient shadow wolf, the eight-meter beast lowered his broad, furred shoulder. It caught Arthur’s limp body with feather-light care. The hound twisted his massive torso, sliding Arthur gently down onto the thick, warm black glass pelt of his flank, shielding the unconscious tamer between his muscular…
