A clean job site is a safe job site.
No rule in the General Builder’s Pocket Handbook was more sacred to Lu Zhen than the iron law of end-of-shift housekeeping.
The dense clouds of white steam drifted upward into the high air-flow shafts. Then, the dark corners of the World Core cave began to twitch with faint, malignant movement.
A dozen black, leech-like entities—leftover void-parasites spawned from the splattered remains of Demon Monarch Mo Sha’s nervous system—were wildly squirming across the wet dark rock.
They were repulsive, multi-legged horrors, each three feet long, with needle-sharp fangs and oily back shells of condensed negative breakdown. Deprived of their master’s huge mind, their sole instinct was to scuttle into the tiny fissures of the bedrock, enter hibernation, and fester for a few hundred years until they could corrupt the land-wide roots anew.
One particularly ambitious parasite slithered toward Shen Shitou’s left boot, preparing to latch onto his star-steel heel.
CRUNCH.
Frank’s heavy steel-toed work boot dropped from the steam. It crushed the parasite against the stone with three hundred pounds of relaxed tradesman pressure.
