The smell of Elder Kuang’s robes was like sulfur melted rock waste dipped in old animal fat.
Through the slits of Lin Ke’s numbed eyelids, the world had lost all color, reduced to shades of ash and frozen lead. His heart had not beaten in sixty seconds.
His brain was a freezing server room running on the total last fumes of backup battery power, the cold creeping into his brain cortex like frost on a windowpane.
Elder Kuang didn’t look down at the boy’s face.
To a Golden Core sovereign, a backup laborer in rags was no more worthy of attention than a dead cockroach in the corner of a kitchen.
Kuang took half a step forward to peer at the central magnetic core.
And his iron-soled boot came down dead-center on Lin Ke’s outstretched left hand.
CRUNCH.
