Lei Zhen looked up through matted, soot-stained locks of hair, his bloodshot eyes filled with a terrifying mixture of animal hatred and helpless despair.
He tried to lift his right arm.
The heavy thunder-iron cestus felt as though it weighed ten thousand pounds. The shoulder muscle muscles in his shoulder were torn, their fibers shredded by violent magnetic contractions. His median nerves were fully deadened by second-degree internal ohmic burns.
“I’m... The Thunder Beast...” Lei Zhen croaked, his voice barely a dry whisper. “I’m... The chosen dragon of the valley...”
Lin Tao didn’t mock him. He looked down at the ruined prodigy with the objective, sorrowful clarity of an engineer inspecting a burned-out transformer that had been pushed beyond its working rating by negligent supervisors.
“You had huge potential, Lei Zhen,” Lin Tao said quietly. “Your physical constitution is extraordinary. But your elders taught you that power is measured solely by energetic output. They ignored holding and heat smooth speed. They sacrificed your lifespan to win a tournament.”
Lin Tao raised his right hand.
Between his index and middle fingers, he held his four-inch cold-drawn steel land-mapper metal pen.
