The command registered across the cluster with the finality of a headsman’s axe:
Node 0’s living vitals entered low-power hibernation frozen stillness.
The bleeding in Lin Ke’s punctured left lung slowed to a trickle as the Ashen Iron bone lattice squeezed tight around the fractured ribs. He formed a temporary living clamp. His physical heart rate dropped to twenty beats per minute, conserving every drop of oxygen in the cellular matrix. Meanwhile, his eyes rolled back beneath closed lids.
On the terrace flat stone slabs, Apothecary He threw himself across the prostrate physical body. His gnarled hands moved in a wild blur, packing bitter grey styptic moss into the open puncture on Lin Ke’s flank and securing a rigid cedar splint around his cracked ribs with boiled leather straps.
“Lungs hold at half capacity,” He rasped through his teeth, jamming two silver acupressure needles into Lin Ke’s neck-artery junction to lock down blood heavy bleeding. “The living vessel is docked. Hold the line, Meng Shan, or this meat will never wake up!”
Meng Shan planted his massive boots into the fractured marble, planting his eight-thousand-pound black iron shield like a castle gate between the wounded healer and the howling gale. Leftover sparks of purple sky-trial lightning crackled down his arms, grounding into the bedrock with deep, groaning tremors.
