Khael lifted his head.
His eyes were not merely red from blood, pain, or unshed tears; they were pulsing with a raw, unstable violet light that was utterly alien. The light did not emit, it drank. It absorbed the dim, ambient Shinrei of the ruined battlefield, gathering the faint energy like a swirling vortex.
K, who had been composed through countless acts of brutality, paused. His smile dissolved, replaced by a sudden, intense focus.
"That… resonance," K murmured, stepping back instinctively. He felt the shift in the atmosphere it was not just power increasing; it was the nature of the power fundamentally changing.
The Shard of Flesh the ancient artifact that had driven this entire conflict was no longer just an object in Khael's chest. It was a synchronizing catalyst. It was not draining him, as K had intended; it was fusing with the dormant, inherited powers of the Dragon Bloodline.
