The giant stone spine of the ridge narrowed to a jagged razor edge of black dark rock. It dropped off into bottomless cloud banks on either side.
Lin Tao moved with measured, deliberate strides, planting his heavy leather boots into the frost-crusted fissures of the rock. The high-sky wind screamed like a wounded beast, tearing at his coat and whipping needles of dry ice against his cheeks.
With every third step, a dull pang flared in his fourth lateral rib. He kept his breathing shallow. He drew air into his upper lungs to prevent the chest wall from expanding against the squeezing binder. Pain was simply a tracking data stream. An internal signal indicating physical boundaries that couldn’t be crossed without total collapse.
As long as the bone didn’t shift out of posture, the signal could be monitored and managed.
Lin Tao paused beside a massive upright monolith that anchored the eastern edge of the ridge.
The monolith was ten paces tall, carved from a single slab of milky jadeite. To a traditional fighter, it appeared as a sacred old family marker, etched with fine, detailed calligraphic wards meant to ward off evil spirits and channel heavenly providence.
Lin Tao reached out and brushed a layer of frost from the base of the monolith.
