The black jade plate didn’t pulse with light. It pulsed with pressure.
Every nineteen point eight seconds, a deep-rumbling blast wave rippled out from the cracked bronze housing lying in the mud, passing straight through Lin Ke’s ribs like a dull iron rod.
Whenever that wave crossed his chest, his heart missed a full beat.
His breathing seized. The nested rings of his Mid Golden Core shuddered in their sky-high tracks, trying to stall out as an external, reflex command signal tried to force his automatic nervous system into an end-post heart arrest loop.
Lin Ke picked up the ancient object with his uninjured right hand.
It was eight inches square, carved from dense Stygian green jade and banded in rusted through lead wire. It had been shaken loose from the control chassis of the blew up Corpse-Ram, and even though its power cables were cut, an internal charge bank was still broadcasting into the cold air.
“Drop that thing,” Apothecary He snapped. He kept three paces back with his medicine box clutched to his chest. “That’s an Underworld Soul-Command Tablet. It carries a third-grade soul-seizing curse. Touch it too long and your ghost will walk out of your ears while you’re standing there.”
