"..."
The group gathered around the remains, as though spikes had grown from their own jawbones, pierced their tongues, and fixed them in place like stiff specimens, unable to speak.
Even Kraft couldn't offer any meaningful comment.
The restraints on osteogenesis had been completely lifted. Vast quantities of calcium salts, woven protein fibers, and polysaccharides had been gathered there, building an internal tower like reinforced concrete and bursting through the fragile flesh.
The red layer clinging to the surface of the bones looked, up close, like a delicate network of veins. It was a mass of newly grown microvessels delivering the necessary materials, with large amounts of calcium being deposited there.
This suggested that he might not have collapsed from blood loss, but from hypocalcemia.
As calcium was rapidly deposited to form bone spikes, the level of free calcium in his blood plasma had plummeted.
At first came strange numbness and tingling, creeping through his fingers and across his face—trivial compared to his other injuries.
Then his limbs weakened and dizziness set in. While running, it might have been mistaken for the effects of overexertion.
Only when he realized in terror that his limbs no longer obeyed him did seizure-like convulsions take over from normal movement. Breathing became difficult, his spasming windpipe seeming to be gripped by an invisible hand reaching out from his lungs.
Before he suffocated, the precipitous drop in Blood Calcium had already impaired the function of his central neurons. As he lost consciousness, all he felt in the chaos was pain slowly receding as something grew beneath his skin.
The calcium in his blood alone was nowhere near enough to sustain such growth, so the other half of his skeleton showed obvious signs of weakening. Its surface was riddled with tiny holes, and the inside was