Clank! Whirr——!
His boots froze as if welded to the floor.
The ancient hex dug into his mental sea like iron barbs, twisting with cruel, parasitic hunger.
His thoughts fragmented into chaotic static, his peripheral vision darkening into a tunnel of blinding agony.
Below him, the spiked obsidian ring swept forward with terrifying speed, its Nether-Soul Steel fangs whistling through the air, aimed straight at his paralyzed shins to sever bone and sinew in a single rotation.
'Move, damn you!'
The command raged in his mind, but his mortal nervous system refused to obey.
'Impudent dead things!'
Shen Yu clamped down violently on the inside of his cheek, tearing flesh until hot, metallic blood flooded his tongue and choked his throat.
The brutal physical agony pierced through the mental haze like a burning spear.
