Time stretched.
The spear, once too fast for my eyes to track, now moved as if trapped in thickened air. Every rotation of its shaft, every flicker of wind mana dancing along its surface—I saw all of it.
The agony inside me was unbearable. My nerves burned, my bones felt wrong, my mana circuits screamed in protest. Every cell in my body was caught in the war between life and death, between destruction and survival.
Yet—
I moved.
My body, weighed down just moments ago, now felt weightless. The air itself seemed to bend around me, every detail crisp, every motion clear.
Dodge.
A fraction of a second before impact, I shifted.
Not wildly. Not with desperation.
A single, precise step to the side.
The spearhead tore through empty space, grazing past my ribs. I could feel the force of it, the sheer weight of the technique behind the strike. Had I moved even a breath too late, my chest would've been torn open.
But it missed.
And in that moment—Aldric was open.
Now.
I lunged.
