Blood Butcher raised a hand and grasped the blood-red crystal.
He held it differently from Chu Ming.
Chu Ming had "grasped" it.
His five fingers spread wide, enclosing the crystal.
Blood Butcher "pinched" it.
His thumb and forefinger clamped the crystal's edge, as though pinching a blade.
Not a gentle handling, but a pinch with strength behind it.
His knuckles whitened slightly, and the edges of his nails pressed into the crystal's surface.
The crystal changed in his hand.
It did not "melt."
Chu Ming's crystal had melted into liquid and seeped into his skin.
Blood Butcher's crystal "shattered."
Starting from its edge, like a pane of glass smashed apart.
Cracks spread from where his thumb and forefinger pinched it, webbing outward like a spiderweb.
Blood-red light flickered along the edges of those cracks.
No fragments fell.
The instant they shattered, the fragments turned into blood-red motes of light, floating above Blood Butcher's palm like a swarm of startled fireflies. The motes spun through the air, gathered, and merged.
Countless tiny motes fused into a small knife.
The knife was identical in shape to Blood Butcher's longsaber.
Its blade curved slightly, its edge was sharp, and a row of fine serrations lined its spine.
The only difference was its size: the longsaber was four feet long, while this little knife was only a finger's length.
The small knife floated above Blood Butcher's palm, its tip pointing upward and its hilt downward.
There was a face on its blade.
Not a struggling face, but a "peaceful" one.
Its eyes were closed, its lips slightly parted, as though it were asleep.
Blood Butcher pressed the small knife into the center of his brow.
Not "stabbed" it in.
Stabbing was sharp, piercing, painful.
This was more like pressing it in.
Like pressing in