"They are fighting like they are the only two people in the entire world. It's... it's so enchanting and beautiful!"
"It's not a duel," Mo Wuchen muttered, his dark eyes wide. "It's a conversation. A conversation of absolute, lethal intent."
Inside the duel, Ji'an felt the heat of the fight radiating through her robes.
She could feel the cold emanating from Winter's Sigh, the blade's hunger trying to freeze the fire in her core. She could feel Wangchen's presence, the dark, possessive, suffocating intensity of his focus.
He was pushing her.
He was forcing her to use every ounce of her kinetic mass.
She shifted her stance, dropping her spatula, and utilized a brutal, kitchen-based leverage technique. She slammed the flat of her palm against the hilt of his blade, forcing him to pivot.
"You've gotten stronger," Wangchen noted, his voice breathless, a dark, victorious smile lighting up his face as he recovered from her strike. "The abyss has not dulled your edge."
