The first warning was subtle — a faint hitch in his heartbeat.
He ignored it, leaping into another dash.
The second came sharper: a heavy thump against his ribs, then a rapid stutter, as though his heart had misfired a beat.
His breath caught.
He stumbled to a halt, palm braced against the cool stone wall, feeling the thrum in his chest.
The veins were still glowing faintly beneath his skin, but now that glow seemed to converge toward his sternum, feeding into the burning knot of his Astral Heart.
He remembered the manuals warning of this happening.
In his bliss, he momentarily forgot about the consequences of using the Astral Veins without connecting them to nodes.
He had overloaded his Astral heart by circulating, drawing and releasing, his Ki too exorbitantly for the lone organ to compensate for.
Ki poured into it faster than it could cycle.
