The battle transitioned from a duel into a frantic, rhythmic slaughter of physics.
Raizen was no longer a man controlling fire; he was a vessel being hollowed out by it. As he surged forward, his movements became jagged, the sheer intensity of his mana output beginning to cook him from the inside out.
Every time he channelled a burst of his modified frequency, the heat didn't just radiate outward; it lashed back. His skin began to crack, not from external impact, but from the internal pressure of the combustion. Tiny, glowing fissures appeared along his forearms, weeping golden, liquid mana like blood.
He threw a heavy, sweeping kick, his leg trailing a wake of white-hot plasma that turned the air into a vacuum. Rex met the strike with a telekinetic lunge, the two forces colliding with a sound like a mountain splitting in two.
CRACK.
