The suffocating, narrow corridors of the seventh floor felt like the entrails of a dying beast.
Qian Yunxi flew away, breathing heavily as she moved through the maze, breathing heavily.
Her remaining white gold wings beat with ragged, uneven spasms, kicking up plumes of foul dust from the cracked obsidian flagstones.
Every breath she pulled into her burning chest tasted of copper, sulfur, and ancient bile.
The blackened, cursed scar carving across the left side of her face throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse that sent blinding needles of pain shooting directly into her soul sea.
Dark crimson still trickled from the jagged seam, running down her jawline and dripping off her chin, splattering against the tattered remnants of her white battle tunic.
Yet she refused to slow down. She ignored the tearing agony in her cracked ribs and the hollow, parched emptiness in her spiritual dantian.
