The foam closed over Pei Jing thirty paces out from the cliff. Oil spread across the small gap his dive had left on the surface.
He sank without kicking. At ten paces down, the harbor bell and the screams on the burning ships faded. Underwater he could feel each sweep of the kraken’s tentacles through his chest. The current carried broken boats, timbers, and dead sharks in slow circles. Mud rose off the bottom of the thirty-fathom harbor and cut his sight to five paces.
Turtle Breathing held his pulse at six beats a minute. He drew what he needed through his bones. Water qi brought the heat of his skin down to match the sea. The kraken would feel him pass like a waterlogged beam.
Light from the fires above came through in green and yellow streaks. Thirty paces ahead, Pei Jing felt the current split around a bulk like the hull of an overturned warship. He had seen the purple mantle at the surface, eighty feet across and crusted with tube worms and star-iron slag. He could feel all eight arms dragging through the mud. One passed close enough for him to see the rows of black teeth inside its cups.
