Hajin advanced through the wreckage as the Dread King's buried shoulders lifted, spilling rubble against the steps beneath his feet. The punch still burned across his knuckles, but something scraped under the debris like a patient blade meeting a whetstone.
"Oh, come on, I hit you with my whole damn arm," he complained, shaking the sting out of his fist.
The breastplate split along its seam and dropped beside the broken steps with a dull clang.
He stopped just outside striking distance while the pauldrons fell, baring glyphs stretched over a lean frame of working muscle. Four eyes tracked his hands beneath the helmet's remains, showing none of the panic he expected from losing its armor.
Beast King hooked two fingers beneath the ruined collar and tore, "You thought those plates kept you out?"
The collar hit the paving, leaving the throat and its corded muscles bare to the open air.
