Lin Tao dropped from the overhanging ledge in a tight, controlled crouch.
His iron-rimmed boot heels slammed into the steep scree slope of crushed jadeite gravel thirty paces above the bridgehead. The loose stone shifted beneath his mass, carrying him downward in a controlled moving slide.
Gravel sprayed in a wide white rooster-tail behind his boots, hissing against the dark rock.
To a traditional swordsman, sliding down an unstable cliff face was tactical madness, forfeiting footwork and spiritual height.
To a land-mapper, it was an efficient conversion of gravity potential energy into forward speed. It needed zero muscular effort and zero internal breath consumption.
Lin Tao adjusted his balance point, shifting his hips five degrees to the right.
His path didn’t target the judge captain whose solar axe-spear was dropping toward Tie Shan’s throat. Charging an armored sky warrior head-on with a six-inch land-mapper metal pen was an exercise in bad arithmetic.
Instead, his slide carried him directly toward the three-sided brass spire anchored into the bedrock.
