Every living miracle demanded its body-energy price.
Twenty minutes after his huge ascension, the reality of assimilating an ancient divine relic and swallowing thirty-eight tons of void matter caught up with Echo’s massive body.
The great, one-hundred-and-fifty-meter dragon-whale gave a long, shuddering, world-shaking yawn that created a ten-meter whirlpool in the center of the lake. His huge jade-green talons went fully limp. His amazing star-finned Kunpeng wings folded against his flanks like wet blankets. And with a slow, heavy, slow roll, Echo turned fully upside down.
He flopped belly-up on the surface of the turquoise water.
His massive, white-and-azure underbelly, stretching ninety meters long and forty meters wide, rose out of the water like a smooth, floating island of warm blubber and rubbery scales.
From his slack, unhinged mouth drifted a single, sleepy, giant bubble of spatial mist that popped with a faint:
Bloop...
Arthur Vance stood atop Echo’s floating white belly, his boots sinking two inches into the soft, warm skin layer. He had stripped his heavy diving cowl and gloves. That let the clean, thirty-degree air of the cave wash over his face.
