The column of flame slammed into me… and I did not die, which had surprised me a bit, because the spell should have been more than enough to kill an Acolyte.
My Acolyte robes had no defensive enchantments on them, and I had read enough of the second-year casualty registers to know about the deaths of Acolytes who had stood in the path of a discipline tiers above their own.
The deaths in the registers were of bodies that had been broken before the soul could finish registering the impact.
From the moment that column of flame erupted from Rex's staff, I knew that its power was nearing the peak of the Acolyte threshold.
This sort of flame should have burned its way through my body in an instant, but I was not broken, and it was all because of Mortal Shell, as I felt the impact of the spell through the invisible weave that Mortal Shell had made around my flesh.
