WebNovels

Chapter 33 - Chapter 33 - Wind Antechamber

Agony was a white-hot band around his leg, a vice of star-metal teeth clamped just above the ankle. Nerve-fire screamed up his shin, and a deep, throbbing ache promised worse damage beneath the skin. The ring on his finger pulsed in a steady, frantic rhythm, a second heartbeat of pure warning. Outside the iris, the gale howled, and the tic-tic-tic of knife-rain spicules pinged against the Niche's exterior lip.

Li Tian's mind partitioned the pain, filing it as data. He braced his upper body against the inner jamb of the antechamber, his muscles straining. He timed the macro cadence—the OUTBLAST that tried to suck him back out, the brief wind-hold, the IN-DRAW that pulled him deeper. On the next wind-hold, when the torque on his leg lessened by a fraction, he wedged himself more securely.

His eyes, adjusted to the dim light, found it: an inner pressure latch-glyph set among the star-staples, within arm's reach. A release mechanism. He fumbled the star-map shard from his belt, his fingers clumsy with residual numbness from the last devour. He pressed it to the glyph.

The staples flared. The iris didn't fully open, but it groaned and retracted just enough—a two-beat partial release.

He didn't hesitate. He yanked his leg free.

The sensation was a hot, wet tear. Skin and muscle ripped against the retracting teeth. A flood of warmth soaked his boot, pooling under the malleolus. He spiral-bled the fresh, searing agony instinctively, but the damage was done. A deep, bleeding gash now circled his leg. The cost of freedom.

He collapsed into the Wind Antechamber, a cramped, tubular space. The air was still turbulent, but the cycle was different, faster, tighter. A sharp OUTFLUSH from the interior, a knife-silent HOLD, then a sharp IN-PULL that dragged him toward a dark, vertical shear chute at the chamber's far end.

Relearn the room.

He calibrated, pushing himself up. His Vein Steps were now limping shuffles, taken only during the silent HOLD. His Star Lung breaths were shallow sips of air. The cost was a vise around his chest, sparkles in his vision, and the clamped ankle screaming with every shift of weight. The old pins-and-needles in his forearm returned with a vengeance whenever he used that arm for support.

The way forward was blocked by a Star Shear Grid, a lattice of thin, cold, rotating hexagonal filaments that hummed with a deadly song. It didn't care about speed; it reacted to disruption, to a pressure change on the wrong phase.

He studied the pattern. A suture tick was mounted on the wall nearby, its needle primed to fire on a pressure spike. On an OUTFLUSH, he used a fragment of his shattered bone wedge to trigger the tick. The star-metal needle shot forward, embedding itself in the grid's frame with a sharp ping. The grid's rotation stuttered for a single, precious HOLD.

He slid through the null space, his movements precise, his injured leg held clear, his toe-edges finding silent purchase on the floor. No devour. Only timing.

"Mind your interval."

The polite line slithered through the chamber, a venomous courtesy. A talisman detonated outside. The micro-cycle flipped. The expected HOLD became a sudden, violent IN-PULL.

The force yanked him off his feet, dragging him toward the shear chute. He didn't fight it. He belly-dropped into a lee-notch in the wall, his body slamming against the star-staples. He re-timed his breathing, riding out the aberrant surge without a power move, his discipline a shield.

As the cycle normalized, he began crawling toward the low wind valve that was the exit. A cross-filament from the now-recovered Shear Grid, disturbed by the talisman's aftermath, kissed the air where his bad ankle had been a moment before. He jerked his leg back, but a side vent, misaligned by the sabotage, scythed toward his ribs. There was no dodging in the tight space.

He opened a pinpoint micro-devour over his ribs.

The backlash was a frozen nail hammered between his bones. Iron flooded his mouth, and his fingertips went numb. The side vent's force was deflected, screeching against the ceiling. He spiral-bled immediately, pressing his palm to the floor, the cost a deep, tooth-aching throb that joined the chorus of his pain.

Past the grid, he found the inner gate: a low, round wind valve. A latch-glyph glowed faintly at its center. He pressed the star-map shard to it during a HOLD. The valve irised open, a narrow crawl aperture leading into darkness. It would stay open for one HOLD + one IN-PULL window only.

He committed, dragging his body through the tight space, his injured leg trailing. He was almost through, his shoulders clearing the aperture.

The tendon loop still tied around his boot snagged on the sharpened edge of the iris. The next IN-PULL yanked him backward with brutal force, his body slamming against the valve, the loop tightening like a noose and dragging him toward the roaring shear chute.

More Chapters