Lu Chen acted without a fraction of wasted movement.
He crossed the jade vault in four long strides, reaching the shattered bronze portal.
Beyond the threshold, the outer underground crypt was already filling with a sluggish, oily violet vapor.
The acidic foul fog of the Nine-Headed Corpse Hydroid hissed as it dissolved the hundreds of years-old mortar between the stone blocks of the hall.
Lu Chen bent his knees, his brass-infused tendons tightening like wound hemp cables.
He seized the massive top door beam that had fallen during his entry—a four-thousand-pound block of solid royal granite, five paces long and two feet thick.
HNNNGH.
With a single high-pressure heave of his back and thighs, Lu Chen hoisted the two-ton granite monolith off the floor.
