The underground air felt thick enough to chew.
Deep below the Seventh Ward, behind three sealed blast doors of heavy dark rock and banded iron, Sub-Vault Zero was silent save for the irregular, wet dripping of water drops from the vaulted granite ceiling. A single fire bowl of smokeless charcoal burned in the center of the cave, casting long, wavering amber ribbons across four faces.
Lin Ke knelt on the bare stone, stripped to the waist.
Across his back, from the base of his skull to his coccyx, thin blue-black lines bulged beneath the pale skin—micro-hemorrhages blooming along the Governing Vessel. Every twelve seconds, a shudder rippled through his ribs. It was followed by a dull, high-pressure thump in his lower belly that made his breath catch in his throat.
The Great Circle Foundation had reached total capacity. Twelve thousand pounds of pressure of tightly packed Qi was expanding against the non-elastic walls of his glass spirit veins.
The boiler had no more relief valves.
“Your spine is weeping blood,” Apothecary He said. His voice flat with was cold and exact despair. The old man set down a wooden tray lined with ninety polished silver acupuncture needles, each five inches long and cold to the touch. “In seventy-two hours, the pressure will shear the vessels at your lower-back curve. You’ll be numbed from the hips down before the week ends.”
