The stone statue let go.
Not of its own accord—its palm had been burned through.
Lu Chen fell from the hole, landed on the ground on one knee, and gasped for breath.
The cracks in his ribs rapidly knit together under the Dragon Blood's regeneration, but every breath still felt as though blades were scraping inside his chest.
[Rib fractures healing. Estimated time to full recovery: one incense stick.]
The stone statue lowered its head and looked at the hole in its palm. Its edges were still burning, golden-red light spreading from the opening to the rest of its hand. Wherever it passed, the grayish-white skin cracked and peeled away, exposing the black bones beneath.
It raised its right hand—during that brief interval, the flesh and tendons in its right arm had already reconnected on their own—then clenched both hands into fists and smashed them down at him.
Lu Chen rolled aside.
The two fists slammed into the spot where he had just been kneeling, blasting a deep pit five zhang wide into the Black Sandlands. The sand at the bottom had been compressed into stone.
The shockwave flung him away, his back crashing into a Spirit-Locking Nail. The nail trembled, and its pale golden runes flashed once.
Spirit-Locking Nails. The ones nailed outside the city walls.
Supporting himself with Root Severer, he rose to his feet.
The stone statue was pulling its fists from the pit, both coated in black sand. The grains were corroded into white ash by the deathly aura on its fists and sifted down in a steady rustle.
It raised its head, the mouth in its crack opening as it prepared to roar again.
Lu Chen pulled three Spirit-Locking Nails from his robes.
They were not new nails, but old ones pulled from