The boundary between spirit memory and physical mass does not exist under five crushing deep-sea pressure of Hadal load.
Qiao Ming withdrew his bare right forefinger from the softened dark rock toe of the ninety-arm-length giant statue. Then, the amber warmth that had sustained his flesh did not remain in the stone. It surged backward up his upper-arm nerves like an uncoiled steel spring. It carried with it the cumulative gravity heavy rush of eleven aborted cosmic epochs. In the physical reality of the flooded safe hall, the water pressure remained tuned at five hundred and eleven sea-weights. But inside the vulcanized shark-leather of his diving dress, the psychic and spirit shifted weight of two million years of guilt converted directly into moving load.
His breastplate slammed against his ribs with the force of an iron sledgehammer.
Qiao Ming collapsed to his hands and knees upon the hard speckled rock flags, the lead soles of his boots sliding across the slick layer of diatomaceous settled mud. His forehead struck the bronze viewing ring of his helmet with a dull, hollow impact that set his teeth rattling in his jaw. Inside the helmet, the air turned instantly thick, hot, and tasting of bitter copper shavings, as his lungs struggled to expand against a breastplate that seemed suddenly weighted with fifty tons of solid dark rock.
