The ten ice-ribbed students didn’t charge like men.
They moved with the uneven, skittering agility of starving centipedes skittering over frozen stone.
Their jagged blue icicle-ribs hummed at a piercing, high-pitched hum, spraying a fog of crystal-clear hoarfrost that coated the floorboards in slick rime.
The leading three students leaped at the same time from twelve paces out.
Their blackened, frostbitten fingers curved into talons, aimed straight for Lu Chen’s throat, collar bones, and eyes.
The sub-zero wind preceding their strike was cold enough to turn human eyeballs to solid glass.
Lu Chen kept his gaze steady and unblinking.
He didn’t step back.
