Thirteen minutes later, Hajin planted one foot on the crater's rim and forced his shaking knee beneath the battered tunic. Overturned paving buried the citadel's entrance, and he could no longer pick out the statue where this whole mess began.
Blood dripped off his chin and spattered the chain stretched taut between his torn hands.
Across the crater, Beast King leaned on the shortened haft recovered mid-fight, two of his eyes sealed shut for good. Broken plates bared a flickering core beneath his ribs, and fresh flesh kept knitting over every wound his breathing reopened.
Hajin watched that thread of healing tighten while his own injured shoulder flatly refused to lift.
[ Borrowed Divine State | Time remaining: 04:12 ]
The borrowed light was drawing back toward his knuckles, and every bone it abandoned started remembering each hit it took.
'Four minutes buys that bastard a brand-new body and leaves me bleeding out inside this one.'
