"Make the impact carry it."
Trafalgar kept his eyes on Caelvyrn's outstretched hand. Simple enough words, annoyingly simple considering how many days he'd spent failing to do exactly that, though something in the way the dragon put it made the problem sit differently in his head. He pulled Maledicta free of the black ground and rolled his wrist once.
'Stop waiting for the hit. The pulse isn't a second attack I add on afterward.'
That had been the mistake from the beginning. He'd treated the first impact as a signal. Maledicta touched the target, his mind registered the contact, and only after that did he tell the mana to move. Even with his reactions that delay ruined everything, because the window was never wide enough to hold it.
'The mana has to already be there. Compressed, ready, riding the strike. The contact only gives it somewhere to go.'
