The underground cave split down its deep-rock spine.
A jagged fissure eighty paces long tore through the hardened limestone floor. It spat geysers of high-pressure black bile into the humid darkness.
The ground-shaking shudder threw clouds of gray lime dust into the air, obscuring the vaulted stalactites sixty feet above.
Lu Chen remained anchored where he stood, his boots sinking an inch into the spongy bio-crust as the blast waves rippled beneath him.
His sound bronze marrow detected the shift before the stone gave way.
Deep within the underground strata, sound traveled faster through dense stone veins than through air.
Something huge was climbing from the deep-sea trenches beneath the Hundred Gorges. He climbed the upright rift with terrifying speed.
The friction alone generated an ear-splitting, metal screech. The sound of ten thousand serrated hard shell plates grinding against solid mountain stone.
