Serika watched Isara Blackveil step out of the smoke and felt the woman's mana pressure hit her like a wall.
It was immense. Level 70, and this one wasn't a specialist built around a single trick. Isara's chains reformed in the air around her in a golden lattice that moved like a living thing, each link pulsing with stored energy, and her hollow eyes swept the basin with the measured calm of a woman who had survived ambushes from forces far more dangerous than three girls beneath her level.
She'd already adapted even before being ambushed, for she felt that the ambush was here. She knew what was coming.
And she'd walked in anyway, because she was the kind of officer who didn't run from a fight she intended to win.
Serika had read this woman's file three times before the battle.
