Scalding water drained through the lower outflow grates with a hollow, dying gurgle.
Within five minutes, the floor of Sluice Gate Nine emerged from the receding flood.
Piles of boiled, shredded flesh and blanched ghoul skeletons lay tangled among the river silt. It steamed in the cold draft.
Lu Chen stood in the center of the drained channel, his bare chest slick with sweat and water drops.
His blood heat had dipped slightly after the violent heat dump. He fell from fifty-four degrees to forty-nine point six.
His backup spirit veins—the brittle black glass melted rock waste veins running across his collarbones and ribs—throbbed with dry, hardened friction.
The Melted rock-Vein Syndrome was demanding its heat toll.
He moved without pause.
