The moment it lunged, everything sharpened.
Not just movement. Time itself seemed to thin, pulling every detail into painful clarity as the figure closed the distance in a single decisive motion. The air that had felt wrong all evening suddenly felt like a held breath about to break.
It was faster now. Not just in the way a body moves faster, but in the way intent moves fast, the way something that has finished calculating and made its decision moves. There was no hesitation in it anymore. No testing. No adjustment period. No patience.
Just the single, clean objective of ending this.
"Move," Zhao Lingxi said.
She was already in motion before the word finished leaving her mouth.
