He moved.
The air didn't part. It ceased. A braid of pink and violet light erupted from his spine and coiled around his limbs like serpents made of raw force. His eyes changed. The pupils swallowed the white, leaving two voids ringed by colored flame. Kinetic Control—the stolen ability to absorb and redirect all motion—unfolded in a ten-foot radius.
The scarred man barely turned.
Cruxius was behind him. His boot swung in a low arc that shouldn't have carried weight. But the kinetic energy converted at the point of impact. The flesh didn't bruise. It liquefied. The scarred man's torso compressed inward, ribs firing into his lungs like buckshot, his spine pulverizing into paste. He didn't scream. He detonated.
Blood mist.
