Once Ethan realized he could breathe, the last thread of panic slipped away and he let himself sink. The milky-white liquid swallowed him whole, cool and weightless, and almost immediately he felt waves of energy seeping into his body. It was not a violent surge, not a burning infusion, but something steady and clean, like mountain springwater pouring into cracked stone.
After the brutal fight with the Qilin, every inch of him had ached as if iron hammers had pounded him from the inside out. His bones felt splintered, his muscles torn and wrung dry. Yet as that cool current flowed through him, the pain receded with astonishing speed, dissolving as though it had never existed.
