The Ironwill Knight's hand flashed. Rather than watching the blade, she kept her focus on Renan's spine. Her parry was an economy of motion: an angled cross that took his undercut's force and translated it into a pivot, using his own spin to unbalance him.
Instead of meeting blade with blade in a war of sparks, she placed a palm on his chest—barely there—and let the momentum carry him forward into empty air.
The world told the truth in sounds: Renan's boots scraped stone, the wind shifted, a loose plank skittered away. He recovered mid-lunge, rolling like a tide that knew how to find the shore.
He knelt, blade bristling. "I've never fought someone so powerful!" He stretched his shoulders and roared. "I'm going all out!"
Renan sucked in all the Grace within him, and there was a lot. He summoned a halo of light that spun along his sword, a circling brass of radiance that hummed with promises of cataclysm.
"Celestial Maelstrom!"
