Black canal water churned with rising plumes of gray silt and scalded flesh.
Behind Lu Chen, the twisted iron bars of the five-thousand-pound drop-gate hung bent like boiled willow branches.
Thirty water-ghouls drifted in the settling foam, their boiled, rubbery hides split open by the heat shock of his molten blood.
He wasted no time on the dead.
His core burned at fifty-two degrees, a nonstop, thrumming kiln wrapped in ribs of bronze marrow.
In the sub-surface chill of the Cangwu River canal, every second of stillness wasted precious heat fat.
He reached down into the murky riverbed.
His scarred fingers closed around a thick, braided metal thick ship rope half-buried in the river gravel.
