It was like an insignificant ripple suddenly spreading across a dark, still surface.
Silver light flashed, and Dago was no longer where he had stood.
Space seemed to split beneath a razor-sharp blade, leaving displaced streaks of light lingering in the eyes.
Like a hunting beast, he traced an exaggerated arc through the air, black-blue ice flames erupting around him.
Those ice flames grew wildly as though alive, trailing long tails that carved savage paths through the gloom.
The shadows before him thickened, like some gelatinous fluid trying to slow his movements.
Dago curled his fingers into claws, his knuckles tensing, his fingertips wreathed in a keen, bitter cold.
Riiip-
It was the crisp sound of tearing cloth.
His fingertips pierced layer after layer of viscous darkness, and the resistance vanished abruptly the instant he touched something solid.
Whoosh-
Dago stopped short, the frost beneath his feet plowing deep furrows through the void like tire marks from sudden braking.
Not far away, Ang stood quietly.
Ang's posture had not changed at all. He resembled a statue that had stood since time immemorial, even the folds of his clothes exuding composure.
But a corner was now missing from the previously intact hem of his mage robe.
Dago slowly raised his right hand. Between his index and middle fingers, he held a scrap of black silk.
Bitter frost instantly crept over it, like countless tiny termites gnawing away.
In the blink of an eye, the silk hardened, shattered, and turned to fine dust that sifted through his fingers.
Just an inch short.
Had that strike reached a little deeper, he would have torn away not merely a corner of clothing, but Ang's flesh.
"You're a little cleverer than I expected."
Ang lowered his eyes, glancing at the inconspicuous gap in his robe's