The plaza transformed into a slaughterhouse of divine mathematics and primal brutality. The distance was gone; the grandstanding of magic had collapsed into the wet, intimate violence of two predators locked in a death spiral.
CRACK.
Rex's fist connected with Evelyn's shoulder. The sound wasn't a thud; it was the unmistakable shriek of bone splintering under impossible force.
Her clavicle shattered, sending a spray of crimson across her golden aura, but she didn't flinch. Instead, she pivoted on a dime, her heel driving upward like a piston into Rex's kneecap.
KRAK THUD.
Rex's knee buckled with a sickening crunch, grinding cartilage into powder, but he used the momentum to drive his elbow forward.
His bony point caught Evelyn across the temple. Her skin split like overripe fruit, blood streaming down her face in a warm, red curtain, obscuring one of those terrifying gold eyes.
