The lead bone flail tore through the air with an ear-splitting, faster-than-sound shriek.
SKRRRR-BOOM!
The jagged, iron-spiked skull at the tip of the three-section flail crushed the dark rock flat stone slab where Lu Chen had landed half a second earlier, carving a four-foot trench of shattered gravel.
Lu Chen completed a tight roll across the stone floor, his boots finding immediate traction against the damp rock.
The four Mausoleum Executioners didn’t pause.
They advanced in a timed together diamond formation. Their heavy iron boots shook the cave floor with rhythmic, clockwork brutality.
Eight feet tall and armored in four-inch blackened iron, their dead flesh was supercharged with draconic sludge pumped from the central vat.
Black tubes protruded from the joints of their armor, pulsing with purple-black ichor that leaked through the rivets like grease from an over-stoked fire.
