Six massive iron scythes crashed into the cave floor with the impact of falling boulders.
BOOM!
The limestone foundation blew apart into a hailstorm of jagged shrapnel, gouging a crater five paces wide where Lu Chen had stood half a second earlier.
Lu Chen held his ground.
He shifted his weight backward by a single foot. That let the air shifted weight whip his wolf-skin cloak against his back.
The nearest scythe blade grazed past his collarbone, missing his skin by two inches.
The wind sheer carried a stinging spray of acidic bile. But the eighty-degree heat streaming from his chest stopped the droplets before they touched his bronze skin.
Before the Mother-Gu Queen could drag her barbed limbs from the crushed stone, a dry, rhythmic sound echoed from the high gallery above the nursery.
