Jin's breath steadied just in time for instinct to scream.
He dove left.
A heartbeat later, the sky fell.
BOOM.
The ground where he'd stood exploded—torn apart by a golden pillar that crashed down from above like a divine punishment. The impact left a shallow crater of cracked earth and torn roots, dust curling upward like steam from a pot.
Jin didn't stop moving. He landed in a crouch against the bark of a wide oak, and then launched himself again—upward, scaling the tree in three bounding steps before landing on one of its upper branches. It swayed beneath his weight, but he didn't slow down.
From above, he saw it clearly.
The Ruyi Jingu Bang—no longer Hanuel's casual staff, but now a colossal beam of mythic metal, thick as a tree trunk and easily several stories tall. Its gold sheen gleamed like a lighthouse in the forest, and it vibrated with the kind of pressure that made Jin's teeth buzz.
Then it began to shrink.
Not retract. Shrink.
