When Hercules's eyes, burning with cold fury, locked onto Romans and the Word Bearer's head impaled on the tip of his blade, even the air seemed to freeze for a moment.
His heavy armour did not burden Hercules. Instead, it lent his charge the devastating force of a landslide.
The ground trembled beneath his feet, scorched earth and broken stones spraying behind him.
His blade tore through the air with a low, deadly howl.
Romans saw the golden figure charging toward him. He also saw where his opponent's gaze had fallen: the gruesome "trophy" on his blade.
A savage rage at being challenged surged through him, but beneath it came a deeper, instinctive chill.
He roared, whether to bolster his own courage or issue an order, and gripped the Power Scimitar that had just drunk its fill of loyalist blood in both hands, bracing to parry.
The energy field along its blade hummed, seemingly eager to taste metal and flesh again.
The distance between them closed rapidly.
Hercules made no elaborate changes of attack, no feints.
Facing Romans's guarded stance, he simply poured the momentum of his charge, the strength of his entire body, and the fury boiling in his chest into a single plain, unadorned diagonal slash, swift as lightning!
The Greatsword became a blurred grey afterimage, descending with the will to tear through everything.
Romans raised his blade to meet it. He chose the safest option, a sideways parry intended to deflect the crushing blow.
His judgment was correct, but the gulf in strength and speed was one no amount of skill could bridge.
Clang! Screeech!
An unbearably shrill collision, followed by the sound of tearing metal!
The flickering energy field on the Power Scimitar collapsed with a whine the instant it touched the Greatsword. Its adamantium blade