The word tore from his throat, raw and final.
Power surged out of him, a torrent of silver and gold screaming back along the bonds. Xueya gasped, a sharp intake of breath that was both pain and shock. Su Lan's mental presence flared bright with alarm, then hardened into focus. The drain on him stopped, and for one terrifying heartbeat, Lin Tian was empty.
Mu Chen's glacial fist descended, a mountain of killing intent.
Lin Tian's body moved on instinct, on the last dregs of borrowed strength. He didn't have the energy to block. So he didn't. He dropped his sword.
The crowd roared. He's given up!
His left hand came up, palm open. Not to catch the blow. To meet it. The memory of Su Lan's fire, the precise, clinical heat of her Flowing Ember Body, flashed through his mind. Not the technique, but the principle. The Ember Palm was about containment and release, about holding a sun's worth of heat in a human hand.
