Quinlan's elements came alive with utmost aggression. Fire erupted in walls between exchanges to buy half-seconds of spacing.
Earth surged in slabs that tilted Ragnar's footing mid-charge. The terrain stopped being subtle adjustments and became architecture: magma channels widened into barriers, stone funneled the ridge narrower with every pass, and the air itself thickened with wind pressure that slowed Ragnar's charges by a fraction the dwarf couldn't compensate for.
And through all of it, the blood kept flowing.
Wind curled around Quinlan's forearm in a constant thread that pulled crimson from the wound and fed it across the hilt in a cycle that never let [Soul Reaper]'s edge dry. Every strike deposited more agents inside the enemy, and the agents multiplied inside every wound the regeneration sealed over.
Ragnar's second contamination site lit three exchanges in.
