Beneath the shattered ceiling of the eighth intersection, buried under half a ton of pulverised obsidian rubble, Qing Yan lay in his own cooling gore.
Every breath was an execution.
His shattered ribs had caved inward like dry tinder crushed beneath an iron heel, driving jagged bone shards deep into the meat of his punctured lungs.
With every desperate, shuddering spasm of his diaphragm, thick clots of black, frothing blood welled into the back of his throat, choking his windpipe until he could only let out a wet, strangled gurgle.
The agonizing cavity carved into his sternum burned with the lingering, untouchable resonance of the Infinity Dragon God Physique—a primal, conceptual heat that sizzled through his ruptured meridians, sterilizing his marrow and dissolving his life-force cell by cell.
His vision was fading into a bruised, grey static.
