"Damn it!"
Marcus's mind lurched. This was bad. He had stumbled into something far beyond anything he understood, and judging by how viciously that green jade bead was draining him, there was a very real chance he wasn't walking away from this alive. In the best-case scenario, he would lose every bit of martial arts progress he'd spent more than a year building.
And that was assuming he survived.
If the bead kept devouring his essence at this pace, it wouldn't stop with his inner energy. Once that was gone, it would start consuming his life itself. His body wouldn't even last a minute.
'Shit. What the hell is this thing?'
He forced himself to stay calm, suppressing the panic threatening to overwhelm him. Gritting his teeth, he circulated the Human Rock technique with everything he had, desperately trying to break free from whatever nightmare had seized him, but nothing happened.
