The wind howled with the screech of high-pressure air as the Alpha Shadow Rabbit’s glowing hind paws dropped toward Senior Student Wu’s throat.
Time seemed to dilate into painful, frozen fragments. Through the smeared mud clinging to his eyelashes, Wu could see the single silver-tipped hairs on the rabbit’s paws. He could see the dense, pulsing violet runes of packed striking force coiled within its sinewy leg muscles.
In that fraction of a heartbeat, five thousand years of mortal training terror flooded Wu’s mind.
I’m going to die, the thought echoed through his mind, cold and total. My throat pipe will shatter. My neck spine will snap. My golden core will put out like a blown candle in a wet forest.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands dropped limp from the handle of his golden sword. His throat tightened in gut, helpless excitement of bone-crushing agony.
The strike hit.
Three thousand four hundred jin of explosive bone-shaking force struck his throat with the speed of an iron giant crossbow bolt.
Yet the sound that echoed through the forest was not the sickening crunch of bone, nor the spray of blood crimson.
