The impact knocked the breath out of him.
Then the heat hit.
Five streams of power—red, green, blue, gold, white—rushed through his body like molten rivers forced into too-narrow veins.
His back arched.His nerves screamed.His vision went white at the edges.
He did not see the silver glow rising beneath his skin.
He only felt—
his fingertips go cold,as if an ice-thread crawled up his veins into his heart.
The corpses crushed him again,burying him in dead weight.
And something in him finally broke.
Don't touch me.Don't twist me.Don't drag me down with you—I WON'T BECOME YOU.
A deeper voice—older, colder—rose beneath the fear:
No decay.No rot.No dead thing clings to me.
His torn skin—the patches darkening to corpse-black—shivered once.
Then the腐色peeled back,leaving raw, normal skin beneath.
Warmth surged into his limbs.
He realized—
He could move.He was free.
His fist clenched.
The corpses still on him twitched—frozen like puppets with cut strings.
Then—
"kakaka——"
Cracks raced across their bodies.
Skin split.Rot peeled.Stitches popped.
One corpse collapsed into powder.Another folded in on itself and crumbled.Five more burst into drifting gray ash.
Adrian stood.
A corpse staggered toward him—too slow.
He punched—
"ka!"A spiderweb of cracks.Then—
"peng!!"It exploded.
Another lunged.He kicked—
"dong!"Dust.
Again.Again.
Until the corridor was silentand the air full of floating gray powder.
Adrian stood half-buried in glittering crystal fragments,skin whole again,breath shaking.
At the far edges of the corridor,the remaining corpses stood frozen—watching him,not daring to step closer.
For the first time,they were more afraid of himthan he was of them.