Chapter 32 · The Fist God Doesn't Kneel

Steel Claw's face wasn't a face anymore. The entire left side had turned to polished chrome, veins of red light pulsing under the surface like magma through rock. His right eye was gone, replaced by a glowing crimson lens that tracked Chen with mechanical precision. Old Xu's blood pooled between them, spreading dark and slow across the concrete.

Chen stood. His legs shook but they held. The black iron finger on his right hand had stretched past the third knuckle now, the metal surface rippling like it was breathing. Under the floor the meteor iron hummed so loud he could taste it, a metallic buzz that coated his tongue and made his teeth ache.

Steel Claw laughed. It came out wrong, half human growl and half the screech of tearing sheet metal. "You should've run, kid. Old Xu died so you could run."

"I don't run."

"No?" Steel Claw rolled his shoulders. The joints popped like gunshots. New muscle had packed onto his frame, dense and wrong, the skin stretching tight over what looked like cables instead of flesh. "Then you die here. Just like him."

Chen glanced down at Old Xu's body.