Jab — slip.
Cross — slip.
A left knee driving upward, mist wreathing the kneecap like a censer trailing incense from the pits of hell — Phei took it on his forearm, the mist splashing sideways in an outward arterial spray that hissed where it landed on skulls forty yards away.
The skulls sizzled and blackened, tiny fractures racing across their domes like lightning in miniature graves.
A right knee — same, caught on the opposite forearm with the indifferent ease of a man brushing lint from his sleeve.
Kyle's right leg unfurled in one long surgical extension, the polished boot driving forward at hip-height directly into the hollow between Phei's floating ribs and his chest.
Phei turned a quarter-step and the kick passed him.
And the realm suffered for it.
The missed push kick detonated the loudest ripple yet — a concussion too immense to register as sound, a wall of displaced atmosphere hurling outward in a cardioid pattern warped by the direction of the strike.
