The silence in the Old Gymnasium didn't break. It shattered.
There was no referee. There was no countdown. There was only the sound of Ashe Razar's bare foot driving into the rotted floorboards.
BOOM.
Ashe didn't run. She vanished.
It was the [Flash Art: Ground Shrink]. To the untrained eye, it looked like teleportation. To Vane's [Usurper] eyes, which were currently burning with the stolen reflexes of a Spear Saint, it was just physics abuse. She was compressing her muscles like high-tension springs and releasing the energy in a single, explosive burst.
She crossed the twenty meters between them in a heartbeat.
Her wooden sword, a blunt instrument that weighed as much as an anvil, was already descending toward Vane's collarbone. The air pressure ahead of the swing parted Vane's hair.
Vane didn't block. You didn't block a train.
He dropped.
