Desperation gives a dying man the strength of ten beasts.
Before Qiao Ming could reel in the horsehair line to pin the Scholar’s legs, Ji Mingchuan did not try to cut the cord. With a feral, shrieking snarl, he reached inside his ruined silk tunic, drew forth a small magic charm of crimson red stone, and slapped it directly against his own right thigh.
BOOM.
A bone-shaking blast of spiritual force erupted from the magic charm, shearing the horsehair cord in a spray of black fibers. But also tearing the flesh of the Scholar’s own leg, spraying dark, bright red blood across the salt-frosted floor.
The recoil blasted Ji Mingchuan three paces through the air.
He didn’t land on his feet. He crashed onto Master Lu’s stone base like a wounded hound, his bleeding hands clawing at the gray granite, his teeth bared in an agony of madness.
His right hand scooped up the fallen golden metal pen.
“You can’t have it!” the Scholar screamed, his voice cracking into high, splintering shrieks that bounced off the hard speckled rock ceiling. “If I can’t carry the chisel to the sky, I will dissolve it into green melted rock waste! I will melt the hands of your god! I will turn this safe hall into an empty ditch!”
