Before Aura Nova could even blink after the word left her lips, her senses picked up a new presence lowered before her body, his hand already placed on his hilt with quiet inevitability. It was Lucian, he had moved at a speed that surpassed anything he or Aura Nova had ever displayed before, a speed that felt less like motion and more like instantaneous displacement, as though the world had simply rearranged itself to place him there.
'When?' Aura Nova thought as she hadn't seen or sensed him move, the transition so clean that it felt like reality itself had skipped a frame.
Without missing a beat, Lucian's katana left its sheath with a sharp, resonant zing as it cleaved toward Aura Nova's neck in one sweeping motion, the strike clean and merciless, as though he had banked the entire battle and every prior exchange on this single decisive attack, compressing all intent and killing force into one perfect draw.
