The whisper crawled across the cold dark rock like centipedes over dead skin.
“Easy, beasts...”
“Don’t speak a single word...”
The voices didn’t originate from a single throat.
They echoed from three dozen hairline fractures scattered across the upright rock face. It shook at an unnatural, greasy hum.
Lu Chen didn’t turn his head.
His iron-soled boots remained clamped to the upright cliff at eight thousand paces down.
With a slow, calculated shifting of his weight, he engaged the micro-star-core in his dantian.
