The dual pressure valves along the spine of the twenty-eight-pound cleaver clicked open with a sharp, sharp air hiss.
High-pressure dragon-vein animal fat vapor surged into the black glass cutting channel, igniting instantly against the friction coils of the star-iron core.
The dull black blade flared into cherry-red soft glow.
Within two seconds, the heat edge steadied at a blinding, blazing bright four hundred degrees.
Heat radiated from the weapon in shimmering waves. It warped the dim underground air. Then it turned the damp moss along the jade stone railing into curling black ash.
High Eunuch Wei didn’t wait for the heat to peak.
“Tear his marrow out!” the old eunuch shrieked.
His reedy voice echoed off the black granite ceiling, with the wet, squelching convulsion of his opened ribs.
