His left hand got through.
Palm flat against Drex's chest.
Full contact.
The generation rate—everything Cullen had, everything the ability had built across four fights of warming up—poured into the contact point. Not surface cold. Not the ambient temperature of a one-second touch. The full output of Glacial at its highest point, delivered through a sustained contact that Cullen's body weight was pressing into.
The ice started on Drex's chest.
Not surface level.
It moved inward immediately—the generation rate too high and the contact too complete for the shallow depth of the previous touch. The cold reached the sternum. The cartilage cooled. The encasement was finding structural depth faster than any encasement Cullen had built in any previous fight because the generation rate was higher than it had ever been.
Drex grabbed Cullen's wrist.
