The cold inside Lin Ke’s chest felt like liquid freon poured directly into his main neck blood vessel.
Every breath tastes like dry ash and sour vinegar. Across the gravel courtyard of the staging camp, the copper wind chimes hung perfectly level, suspended in air as stiff as cooling resin.
Then the screaming began at the southern wooden wall.
It wasn’t a roar of battle. It was the choked, bubbling gurgle of dozens of men drowning in open air.
Lin Ke sprinted through the outer edge trench, his boots churning through coarse fiery melted rock waste. His braced shoulder flared with sharp, stabbing pulses, but he kept his head down and his weight centered.
At the wooden wall gate, seven sky galleons made of hollow dragon-rib bone were drifting out of a shimmering spatial fog. These were refugee ships from the lower astral sectors of Shard 07.
The moment the lead vessel crossed the outer edge fence, its crew collapsed onto the decks.
Fighters tore at their collars with bloody fingernails. Their faces were swollen purple, veins bulging across their temples like nests of earthworms. Blood was not pumping through their arteries toward their hearts. It was surging backward toward their fingertips and toes, rupturing tiny blood vessel beds beneath their nails.
