"Sin of Wrath: Tegmen."
The words vibrated in my bones.
The Wrath around me compressed, sinking into those lines. Pain exploded—sharp, surgical, cutting straight through tendons and bone; my teeth ground together, jaw shaking. Then, like a blade sliding into its sheath, the agony narrowed into a single, cold thread running along my spine.
My body felt lighter.
Not healed.
Just stripped of unnecessary signals—pain reduced to background noise, fatigue pushed under the surface. Every breath still dragged, but it didn't matter. My vision sharpened until each droplet of falling blood, each grain of white sand at my feet, each hairline crack in Sirius's armor stood out with unnatural clarity.
He moved first.
-BOOOOM!!
The ground where he'd been standing exploded. He blurred, a streak of black and amber crossing the distance between us. His sword came down in a vertical arc, black blood howling around it like a pack of starving beasts.
Trinity Nihil snapped up to meet it.
