Rui gazed at him with a serious expression. "Why has he not attacked you yet and taken over your faction after killing you?"
The man chuckled. "Such little faith in my power, I see."
"…Are you able to defeat him?"
"No," Lord Vakratunda admitted. "But the reason he doesn't attack me is because he knows he will suffer grave injuries against me even if he emerges from our battle victorious. It will create plenty of opportunity for other powerful therianthropes within our continent to kill him."
Rui could tell that the Gajanan leader was powerful. His body, too, possessed incredible density, comparable to that of the Dragon Emperor, likely meaning that he, too, had undergone Convergence of Beast, the therianthrope equivalent of the Singularity of Nature in the Nature Path in the elves.
"So you pose enough of a threat to serve as a deterrence." Rui fell into thought. "That must also mean that you pose enough of a threat to serve as an impediment, correct?"
