[Ding! Spatial anomaly detected—]
Phei slammedback-first into the floor with a wet, meaty crack that echoed through his skull like a dropped watermelon. Pain detonated along his spine—sharp, electric, white-hot—as though every vertebra had shattered at once and then been ground into jagged shards by the impact.
Pain wasn't localized; it was everywhere—a supernova detonating from tailbone to brainstem. His godly poise, that effortless, serpentine, predatory grace he'd worn like second skin, shattered along with it.
All that remained was a trembling teenager clawing at cold stone, gasping like a fish flung onto asphalt.
[Ding! Host has entered Near-Death State]
He sucked air in desperate, shredded gulps—each inhale a knife twisting deeper into ruined cartilage. Hands slapped the floor, fingers scraping uselessly as he dragged himself forward on elbows and belly.
