Leonardo PoV
The sound of shattering masonry and wood echoed like a thunder storm down the burning avenue as our exchange tore the surrounding structures to splinters. Every time my forearm met her palms, the raw kinetic shockwave created more craters around us.
Hayang was fluid and merciless. She wove between my heavy parries, her fingers grazing my shoulder and leaving a sting across my body. I didn't flinch. I drove a tight, brutal left hook into her flank, feeling the unyielding density of her abyssal frame as the impact rattled through my own arm.
She gasped, the impact forcing her back three paces, her heels digging smoking trenches into the cracked cobblestones.
"You truly are a stubborn creature, priest," Hayang said, her voice dropping its playful edge entirely as she smoothed her collar with one hand. "To fight an abyssal general on pure physical conditioning alone... it's almost insultingly impressive. You're no ordinary man."
