Page 176 of Warlord's Plaything

"You’re persistent."His voice is too calm. Too amused. Like we are nothing more than an inconvenience.

Like we are already dead.

His skin is different now—no longer just dark elf obsidian, but cracked, like veins of necrotic fire are burning beneath it. His eyes are gone. What’s left is something hollow. Something not mortal.

Hira moves faster. She’s a blur, fast, brutal, precise. Her blade sings through the air, aiming for his throat.

For a moment, I think, Yes. We have him.

But then…

Kaelith doesn’t move.

Doesn’t dodge.

Doesn’t even blink.

He simply lifts a hand?—

And stops the blade mid-air.

It hangs there, frozen inches from his skin.

Hira yanks, trying to pull free.

Her arms strain, muscles flex, but the blade doesn’t move.

It won’t move.

Kaelith isn’t just powerful.

He is something else now.

Something beyond us.

"You still don’t understand, do you?" Kaelith tilts his chin, studying us like insects caught in a web."I am no longer bound by your laws. By your limitations."

He clenches his fist and Hira flies backward, slamming into the stone wall with a sickening crack.

I lunge, blade low, fangs bared. Power surging through my veins.

But Kaelith is faster. He sidesteps, barely lifting a hand, and suddenly I’m on my knees, body paralyzed, every muscle locked in place.

"Fools."Kaelith steps closer, his voice almost gentle."Do you truly believe you can kill a god?"

A pulse of black fire erupts from his palm, racing toward me.

I try to move.

I try to breathe.

But my body does not obey.

I brace for the end.

Hira throws herself between me and the blast.

The fire hits her instead.

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