In an instant, with a heavy thud, Jason and Marcus crashed violently into a thick pit of mud, the impact knocking the wind completely out of them.
Jason struggled to sit up, realizing he had sunk half a meter into the sludge. His sleek, silver-white power armor was caked in gray-black muck, and his head swam with a dizzying concussion.
A few seconds later, he regained his bearings and aggressively wiped the mud from his helmet visor. Looking down, he noticed his armor was speckled with tiny patches of bioluminescent blue fungus.
He tasted copper, blood from a bitten lip or bleeding gums. His muscles and bones ached fiercely, but amazingly, nothing was broken.
He didn't feel the sharp, agonizing pain of major internal bleeding; it was mostly just a sprained wrist, nothing critical.
