A wet, hot pop echoed deep behind Lin Ke’s temples, followed right away by the copper stench of bright red blood flooding his sinuses.
The brain pressure was climbing at a lethal slope. Inside his skull, the four ephemeral soul threads were redlined at four hundred percent clock speed, their thread execution loops spinning so wildly that the tiny blood vessel beds behind his optic nerves were beginning to rupture. Crimson tears seeped from the inner corners of his eyes, tracing hot lines through the crust of dried cooling broth on his cheeks and dripping off the sharp angle of his jaw onto his collarbone.
In the physical world, he couldn’t move his tongue.
The iron mouthguard was locked between his jaws, but through his clenched teeth came a low, nonstop sound hum that made the quartz stone stand vibrate beneath his locked boots.
Below the dais, Apothecary He dropped his wooden tongs.
“His brain vessels are tearing!” He yelled, his cynical manner fully shattered as he grabbed a narrow silver syringe filled with ice-cold Seven-Acupoint Calming Nectar. “His Sea of Mind is desynchronizing! If his divine sense fractures now, he’ll suffer total encephalic collapse! Lin Ke! Drop the thread count! Drop it before your brain pan turns to scrambled eggs!”
