Zhang Xi takes another step back.
Her reaction bothers me more than the sound does.
Zhang has already faced Rahul Sharma, Brinekin, come through the flooding, and watched the guardian nearly turn Veric into a red smear on the floor. Force isn't what's shaking her composure. I follow her eyes to the golem's chest and start seeing the same problem.
The beats are getting faster.
BOOM.
A pulse of OXI crosses the stone body, long and relatively weak. The heartbeat feels more like an explosion than something alive.
BOOM.
The next one comes short and compressed, at nearly double the intensity.
Another beat is born before that one finishes dispersing, and this time the energy splits along several paths inside the torso. The next runs in a different direction. Frequency, duration, amplitude, direction. Nothing repeats.
I'm looking for a relationship between the pulses and I can't find one.
It's like trying to break a cipher whose key changes with every character.
