Yhey found him instead.
The exchanges were harder than the Grade Six average — these ones had survived long enough in the engagement to have adapted, and adaptation in demons was always more dangerous than raw grade.
He took a strike to his left shoulder guard on the second one, the impact absorbed but the arm informing him afterward about its feelings on the subject. He finished it and checked the arm.
Functional.
He moved on.
Somewhere in the field's middle phase, crossing back toward Elias's position after an engagement on the far right that had taken longer than intended, the arithmetic resolved itself. Not with announcement. Not with any particular exchange that felt different from the others. Just the accumulated count, running in the back of his awareness, crossing a threshold quietly the way numbers did.
He had passed five.
Daveon's count was behind him.
