Crack. Crack. Crack.
Fine fractures began appearing across the surface of the bone exoskeleton — spreading in thin, branching lines, threading outward from each point of contact with the quiet, inevitable patience of something that had already decided where it was going. Tommy's bones were formidable against raw physical force — built to absorb impact, to distribute pressure, to outlast what ordinary materials would have crumbled under long ago.
But the lightning coiling around the serpent's body was not raw physical force.
It was a living current — electric, relentless, striking the same surfaces dozens of times in the span of a single breath. Not crushing. Vibrating. Shattering from within, the way a sustained frequency can bring down something that a single blow never could. Slowly but steadily, the bone reinforcement was being reduced.
Lukas did not care.
He was busy.
