Grey didn't feel the change until the wind was already whipping against his back.
He spun toward it, but he was still half a step too slow, and Veyrath's fist slammed into his side with enough force to make the crystalline armor explode outward in a shower of fragments. Grey had built the thing to resist heat, not raw physical punishment, so the outer layers shattered immediately, but as he was launched away he still caught the faint edge of surprise in the Elemental Prince's eyes.
Grey understood why almost instantly.
Elementals weren't monsters of pure physical strength, not in the same way a Dormaji was. Veyrath was clearly using his flames to amplify the force behind his strikes, adding heat and combustion to every blow until flesh should have ruptured from the inside out, and against practically anyone else that punch probably would have left a torso looking like ground beef.
Grey's armor happened to be built for exactly the part Veyrath relied on most.
