BOOM!
The subterranean frost exploded into a blizzard of razor-sharp ice shards.
Three miles beneath the tourist escalators and tea kiosks of Mount Kunlun, black meteoric iron chains snapped like dry twine. The heavy blood-granite lid of the central sarcophagus flew twenty feet into the air. It crashed against the frozen cavern ceiling, shattering into a hail of jagged stones.
A desiccated, claw-like hand reached out from the depths of the open coffin.
Long, jagged black fingernails dug into the rim of the stone. Slowly, a hunched, terrifying figure pulled itself upright.
It was Ancestor Kunlun-Zi.
His body was wrapped in rotted grey burial shrouds, stiff with centuries of dried gore. His skin was like yellow parchment stretched directly over a skull, with no flesh or fat beneath. In his sunken eye sockets, two pinpricks of crimson corpse-fire blazed with rabid, unnatural hunger.
Behind him, four other sarcophagi detonated in rapid succession.
