Zero point three seconds. Lulu's words echoed across Adam's buzzing mind. His fingers twitched on Grum'Thal's chest. His mana and qi flowed there in sky-blue and gray.
The core stood opposite, impious green flames flaring across its dented surface. It was an organ... no, a twisted bastion defending a corrupted heart. Its walls were cracked, and its dark surface dull, in a state of suspended transition before the demonisation engulfed it.
It was frail. Wrestling the invisible wall of demonic energy that it raised would shatter it and take Grum'Thal's life with its fragments. But did he have to?
The mental strain until blood trickled from his nose, the protruding veins in his eyes that turned them bloodshot, and his legs barely keeping him standing—they were all for this moment.
