Vane called everything he had within the first thirty seconds of real fighting, and it still wasn't enough.
He opened with Warlord, crimson pressure gathering thick along his arms, the Killing Intent aura rolling out ahead of him at the highest output he'd ever called from it. Nyx answered with a palm strike aimed at his sternum, and he caught it on the spear's shaft, the impact ringing through both of them, his boots skidding a full foot backward across the stone from the force of it.
That told him what he needed to know within the first exchange. This wasn't close.
Sael, still slumped near the base of the stage, watched with one hand pressed against her own cracked ribs, and something in her face, following the exchange, told Vane she'd already run the same math he was running now and arrived somewhere worse.
