The sound barrier didn’t break with a boom. It tore like canvas.
A cone of white-hot, negative-heat air materialized around the tip of the Nether-Sovereign Spectral Spear as it sped up past one thousand meters per second.
The barbed point was less than twelve inches from Lin Ke’s windpipe.
At that speed, living nerves were an obsolete signal protocol. Even with his Mid Golden Core running at full clock speed, Lin Ke’s muscles couldn’t generate the lateral gaining speed needed to clear the strike’s lethal radius in the three split seconds leftover before impact.
Then came the inner wall.
Meng Shan didn’t dive. He didn’t jump.
He stepped into the spear’s flight path with the terrifying, certain heavy rush of a falling cliff.
The body-fighter threw his left shoulder forward, raising the jagged, cracked leftovers of his two-piece cold-iron tower shield.
