A fine cloud of black crystal dust sprayed into the evening air, hissing like thrown sand.
The notched six-foot broadsword slipped from Cassian Vance’s petrified fingers. The heavy blade clattered down the marble staircase, bouncing across three shattered steps before coming to rest in the bloody gravel.
At Hour 530 of Kaelen’s rest vow—under a five hundred and thirty-one times multiplier—the final collapse was complete.
Cassian’s dantian imploded like an overheated clay kiln.
Through the tears in his skin, streams of black ash and sulfurous gas poured from his ruptured meridians. The grotesque mutated bulk of his muscles shrank rapidly, deflating like a punctured leather bladder.
His legs gave way beneath him with dry, wooden snaps.
Cassian fell forward onto the second step, his chin striking the cold stone.
He could no longer move his hands. He could no longer lift his shoulders. The calcified black crystal coral that covered his chest had turned brittle, flaking into dark soot with every shallow wheeze.
