The air boiled with golden light.
Mana surged from Seran's body in waves—no longer tempered, no longer hidden. It howled through the battlefield like a second heartbeat, like the voice of something that had been caged too long.
The dust around his feet scattered.
The cracks beneath him widened.
And above it all, his eyes—once careful, composed, scripted—now burned.
Locked.
Dead center.
On him.
Lucavion.
The man who had peeled back his mask and held the truth up for the world to almost see.
Lucavion tilted his head again, calm in the face of the storm.
Then, for the first time—
He smiled.
Not mockingly.
But knowingly.
"So," he said, voice cutting through the wind like silk through flesh,
"you were peak 4-star all along."
Seran didn't answer.
His grip on his blade tightened. The glyphs on his vambraces lit up—triple-tiered layering scripts designed for momentum bursts and rapid aura cycling.
Lucavion continued, still standing in place, estoc at his side.
"Then why—"
