The seven columns arrived.
Kai deflected the first two with his fists — Penetrating Strike changing their vector, the first toward the left wall, the second toward the ceiling.
He took the third on his right shoulder because his left fist was still completing the arc of the second deflection.
His right shoulder went numb.
The four remaining were coming.
Kai went to the ground — rolled under the fourth and fifth that passed over him — and deliberately activated the area pressure point under his foot as he got up.
The upward impulse pulled him out of the sixth's radius.
The seventh caught him on his left side.
His left side joined the list of things protesting.
Standing.
The twenty creatures covered two-thirds of the chamber between him and the administrator.
---
Kai looked at Serah.
Serah looked at him.
Her markings at eight percent pulsed.
She read him.
Kai looked at Lira.
Lira looked at him, her working shoulder slightly tense.
