The tension in the plaza was no longer just a feeling; it was a physical weight, a pressure in the lungs of everyone present. Rex watched Apollo through the slit of his stone visor, his mind working with the cold, calculating precision of a grandmaster surveying a board.
He knew Apollo better than most. Over the months of their manufactured friendship and strained coexistence, Rex had learned that Apollo was no brute.
He wasn't just a man of light; he was a man of strategy. He understood the geometry of power. The Apollo standing there now wasn't the man from the canyon; he was something sharper, something hardened.
The Apostle of Life had undergone a metamorphosis in the weeks since their last encounter, and the energy signature radiating from him was blindingly dense. The recovery period hadn't been a time of rest; it had been a crucible of refinement.
"You said you came from the Underlayer," Apollo said, his voice cutting through the dust like a blade.
