It was not Hiroshi standing in the middle of the chamber anymore.
The shape still looked roughly like him with two arms, two legs, standing upright. His face was still clearly his. But everything else had changed into something hard to describe.
His body looked like it was made of shadow, or something that moved like shadow but still had weight to it. From the surface of it, thin black tendrils slowly drifted outward in every direction, like something was trying to grow but had not decided what shape it should take.
The only part that had not changed was his face, resting at the center of that dark mass, almost as if it had been left there by mistake.
Elias was already moving when it happened.
He didn't stop to fully understand what he was seeing. In his experience, the moment you spent trying to figure something out was the moment your opponent used to close the distance. His instincts had already sensed the danger and moved his body before his mind could catch up.
