The walls closed around him like the jaws of a vise. Water pressure rose inside the tube. Pei Jing’s boots held in the thick folds beneath him. He took the pressure through his bones while Turtle Breathing kept his chest in balance with the water.
He had one point eight seconds. Then the valve would open and forty tons of seawater would carry him out against the rocks.
Six Thunder-Astral Penetrating Needles lay in each hand. A blade would have dragged in the water. These needles only had to go straight. Star iron ran through their cores. The qi inside them hummed in answer to his Chaos Root.
Five paces ahead, three hearts the size of hay bales beat behind the wall. One drove blood through the kraken’s two-hundred-ton body. The other two fed the gills. Between them shone a pale yellow knot of nerves three feet wide. From it, the beast controlled all eight tentacles and the jet that drove it through the water.
Pei Jing could barely see it through the ink. He felt the three hearts and the small pulses that passed through the knot. He let his weight settle deeper into the fold.
He sent the needles ahead on two quick waves of Gang Qi. Six from the right, then six from the left. The star iron spun, and each needle carried a sleeve of silver bubbles. All twelve crossed the five paces before the valve could move.
