Rex lay motionless for several heartbeats, his body sprawled across the fractured violet floor. His mind was not focused on the pain; pain was merely data but on the rapid-fire assessment of his own deteriorating condition.
'Jaw fractured in two places.'
'Left clavicle hairline crack.'
'Rib three bruised.'
'Shoulder joint compromised.'
He could feel his Infinite Regeneration working, a familiar hum of cellular reconstruction beginning to stitch his tissues back together. But something was wrong.
The process felt sluggish and even heavy. The usual instantaneous knitting of bone and sinew was being met with something viscous and resistant.
That red energy that self-authored blasphemy wasn't just attacking him physically; it was interfering with the very mechanism of his immortality.
It was poisoning the acceleration of his healing, forcing his body to work through a metaphorical mire of crimson sludge.
