It felt less like an aura and more like an entire sea crashing down overhead, carrying the low growl of an ancient beast and the gaze of an indifferent god.
Was that... the quality of a king?
His heart hammered wildly in his chest, almost hard enough to shatter his ribs.
His mind was washed blank by that tide, but his body, honed through years of killing, moved faster than thought-his fist had already instinctively hurtled toward the boy with all his strength behind it.
"Urgh-"
The collision he expected never came.
That overwhelming aura receded like the tide, taking every sound around him with it.
Absolute silence enveloped him, as though he had suddenly sunk into the deep sea. He could not even hear his own heartbeat.
The eerie stillness even disrupted his mental balance, briefly making him feel weightless as his body involuntarily pitched forward.
A barely audible footstep.
The boy was no longer where he had been.
The charred man felt his arm tighten as cold fingers clamped around his forearm like an iron shackle.
His heart sank.
This was bad.
At this distance, in this position, a lethal close-quarters grapple was bound to follow-
The thought had barely formed before his body slipped beyond his control.
The force gripping his arm was not brute strength, but a deft pull that followed his own forward momentum and abruptly added a twisting force.
His feet instantly left the ground. His vision spun, and the wind whirled past his ears.
After two rapid rotations, the grip abruptly released.
Boom-
Dull impacts rang out one after another.
He was flung away, his back scraping violently across the ground and plowing a long furrow until he crashed into a thick stone wall. Only then did his momentum stop, amid an eruption