Deep-sea frost struck not as surface ice, but as a total cessation of motion.
In the dead-still water of the underground heart vault, the heat plummeted past the freezing point of river salt water without forming crystals.
It was rotting chill. A spirit frost born of five hundred years of unavenged drownings, designed to target the living pulse of human blood.
From the black pearl altar, ribbons of liquid darkness unfurled like ink poured into clear mutton broth.
The ribbons coiled through the water, drawn by the furious heat wave of Lu Chen’s chest.
Where the black ribbons brushed against his wolf-skin cloak, the coarse gray guard hairs instantly stiffened, frosted over. Then he snapped into brittle needles.
Lu Chen felt the cold strike his chest bone like an iron mallet dipped in liquid frost.
It bypassed his boiled leather vest, his calloused skin, and his dense muscle fibers, sinking directly into his chest cavity to snuff out his heart-crucible.
