The world dropped out from under him. The Intercostal Lift's up-draft died without warning, plunging Li Tian into a silent, gut-wrenching fall. His mind, a crystal of focus, discarded fear. He scanned the shaft wall—rune teeth, staple rungs, the shallow ribs of the Suture Crown sweeping past. On the next NULL, when the chaotic forces stilled, he twisted. His good boot scraped against rune teeth, spraying sparks. He bounced, his torso slamming against a staple rung, and hooked his bleeding heel onto a crown rib. The impact jarred his bad ankle, sending a white-hot brand of pain up his leg. His breath locked in his throat. He spiral-bled the shock through his contact points, the pain receding to a deep, fiery throb. No devour. Only desperate, calculated terrain use.
He hung there, panting in silent, controlled bursts. He was in the Suture Crown, the thoracic ring where the star-metal architecture reached its zenith. The cycle here was complex: a long, radial OUTBLAST that pushed outward, a tight, silent NULL, and a deep IN-DRAW that pulled everything toward the center. Overlaying this was a secondary, three-count harmonic pattern, a faint song in the metal. A wrong step, a harsh breath, and crown snares—barbed star-threads—would lace from the walls.
He recalibrated. His Vein Steps became minuscule adjustments, his weight settling only on true NULLs, his toe-edges finding purchase on staple ledges. His Star Lung breaths were ghosts of exhalation. The ledger was a constant scream: a vise around his chest, sparkles at his vision's edge, the calf fire flaring with every shift, the forearm pins returning whenever he pushed off.
A lattice of whistle slits surrounded him, lashing out with invisible, cutting wires during the wind-holds. The rungs themselves held cross-shear shutters that fired a half-beat after each IN-DRAW. He moved like a shadow, hugging the lee of radial staples. He baited a single suture tick, triggering it early so its star-needle jammed a shutter's frame, buying one clear cycle. No devour. Only rhythm.
A Star Sentry Eye irised open above him. He kept his pitch perfect, his exhale a steady, low line, his stance impossibly narrow. The pressure hum of a gathering ping swelled in the air around him, a physical pressure against his skin, then receded as he passed, unseen.
He reached a narrow pulse shelf, a stable platform before the final gate. At its center sat the Rosette Glyph, the Crown Gate. It required three precise touches of the star-map shard across three separate true NULLs. He steadied himself, syncing his breathing to the crown's fundamental frequency. During the first NULL, he pressed the shard for a precise one-count. The glyph's first petal glowed. He held perfect stillness. On the second NULL, he repeated the motion. A second petal ignited.
"Keep your timing, if you can."
The polite voice was a drop of acid in his ear. A talisman popped.
The crown's key shifted. The third NULL he was waiting for became a false null—silent but buzzing with hostile energy. The wall felt hairy against his palm. A crown snare began to unspool from a vent, a barbed thread looping toward his already-injured ankle.
He dropped to a lower breath, widened his stance by a thumb, and stepped on an off-beat half-count. He pressed the heel of his palm against a cold staple, grounding the disruptive buzz. The ring's pulse became his metronome, guiding him through the dissonance. A minor purifier swirl scoured the last vestiges of river-grit from his meridians—a final tuning.
But the sabotage had a final consequence. A second Sentry Eye, hidden in the rosette itself, irised open at point-blank range. Its pressure ping swelled, filling the small shelf, aimed at his chest. There was no cover.
He opened a pinpoint micro-devour over his sternum.
The backlash was a detonation inside him. Iron flooded his mouth. His fingertips went dead. The fire in his calf became a sun. The cracked tooth split fully, a sharp, sickening crunch. But the concussive force was deflected, washing over him in a wave of numb pressure. He spiral-bled instantly, palm and sole flat against the shelf, the costs a symphony of ruin in his nerves.
Gasping, vision swimming, he recalculated the true NULL through the ringing in his ears. On the correct beat, he pressed the shard to the Rosette Glyph for the third and final time. The entire glyph blazed. A narrow Crown Aperture irised open along the ring, revealing a dark passage—the way out.
The final traverse was a gauntlet. Crown snares quivered, waiting for a misstep. Whistle slits ticked like clocks. A Sentry Eye watched, cold and unblinking. He tip-toed along the ledge during a clean NULL, his body a whisper. Then, on the following IN-DRAW, he committed, letting the centripetal pull help launch him into the dark aperture.
He was halfway through when the star-staples lining the passage snapped inward, forming a tightening, barbed wreath around his waist, the metal teeth biting deep into his flesh.