Four kilometers east, in a district that had been reduced to rubble by the sheer violence of their exchange, Karacus Drakemore and Gareth Ganesha faced each other across a crater that measured thirty meters across.
Both were Mana Heart Rank 3. But Karacus mana density and physical parameters noticeably superior to Gareth's early stage cultivation. The Frost Dragon bloodline gave him an edge that went beyond raw numbers. Cold was not just his element. It was his biology. Every cell in his body was optimized for combat in ways that beast-kin physiology simply couldn't match without centuries of refinement.
