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Chapter 35 - Chapter 35 - Echo Duct

The world was a void beneath his feet, a roaring, vertical wind-plume hungry to swallow him. Li Tian dangled from the cold, sharp rune-teeth at the latch's edge, his grip slipping. Every variable screamed: the fire in his calf, the pins-and-needles in his forearm, the hairline crack in his tooth, the deep, grinding ache in his ribs. The ring pulsed a steady, cold rhythm against his finger—a warning, not a rescue.

His mind, a fortress of discipline, processed the fall. The Echo Duct's cycle was an organ pipe's breath: a snap OUTFLUSH down-draft, a tight NULL, a sharp IN-PULL up-draft. On the next NULL, the torque on his arms lessened. He used that fractional second to re-set his grip, grinding the frayed lace of his injured boot against a rune tooth. He kicked out, his good foot dislodging a suture tick from the rim. The star-metal needle fired, shearing through the remaining lace fibers.

The lace snapped. He was free, but the cost was a fresh, hot flood of pain from his malleolus and a breath that hitched in his throat for a paralyzed count. He spiral-bled the shockwave immediately, the pain receding from a scream to a familiar, fiery throb.

He pulled himself fully into the Echo Duct, a vast, vertical shaft whose walls hummed with resonant harmonics. Any noise, any disruption, would spawn echo snares—cold star-threads that would cinch from the walls. He recalibrated instantly. His Vein Steps became toe-edge placements on tiny staple ledges, taken only during the silent NULL. His Star Lung breaths were so shallow they barely fogged the air. The ledger was stark: a vise around his chest, sparkles in his vision, the calf fire spiking whenever his weight settled wrong, the forearm pins returning with a vengeance.

He descended. Cross-shear shutters fired a half-beat after each IN-PULL, a delayed trap. He hugged the lee of staple ribs, using the structure itself as a shield. He baited a suture tick, triggering it early so its needle jammed a shutter's mechanism, desyncing a lethal lane for a single cycle. No devour. Only rhythm and terrain.

Below, a Star Sentry Eye irised open, its cold lens scanning the duct. He kept his pitch perfect, his exhale a low, steady line, his stance narrow. The pressure hum of the gathering ping swelled around him, then receded as he passed, unseen, a ghost in the machine.

He reached a narrow maintenance lip—a pulse balcony. A Harmonic Latch was set into the wall. He steadied himself, matching his breath to the duct's fundamental hum. During a true NULL, he pressed the star-map shard to the glyph for exactly one count. The latch irised open, revealing a short crawl leading to the Resonance Elbow, a bend where the harmonics would flip.

"Keep to the low register."

The courteous advice was a shiv in the dark. A talisman popped in the distance.

The duct's key shifted by a quarter-step. The NULL became a false null—silent but electrically charged. The wall buzzed against his palm. From the vibrating surface, a cold echo snare began to form, a star-thread looping toward his already-cinched waist and his bad ankle.

He dropped to a lower breath, widened his stance by a thumb's width, and stepped on off-beats, grounding the disruptive buzz into a cold wall staple. The ring's pulse became his metronome, guiding him through the dissonance. A minor purifier swirl scoured a hair more river-grit from his meridians—readiness, not power.

But the sabotage had woken another Sentry Eye at the elbow. It irised open at point-blank range, its pressure ping swelling mid-breath, filling the cramped space. There was no dodging.

He opened a pinpoint micro-devour in his palm, meeting the concussive force.

The backlash was a hammer on an anvil of bone. Iron flooded his mouth. His fingertips went completely numb. The fire in his calf erupted into a white-hot inferno. The hairline crack in his tooth split wider, a sharp, sickening pain. But the ping was deflected, dissipating into the wall with a concussive thump. He spiral-bled instantly, palm and sole against the cold metal, the costs a screaming chorus in his nerves.

Gasping through the agony, he saw the final objective: an Intercostal Lift, a controlled up-draft well. He lunged during a true NULL, pressing the shard to the wind-glyph. The lift irised open, a vertical current of air beckoning him toward the Thoracic Crown. The window was one NULL plus the following IN-PULL. He committed, launching his broken body into the rising column of air.

The lift carried him upward for three heartbeats before the up-draft collapsed into dead air. He dropped, the bad ankle screaming, his fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth, rune-etched walls of the shaft.

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