"...Right." Soren blinked in slow, grim agreement. "But let me... recover first."
He then leaned back against the pile of cooling corpses, his chest heaving. Even though he just wanted to rest, his mind couldn't help but calculate the mechanical strain of what they were about to attempt.
Combining the abilities was a blind gamble. Soren could feel the untapped power of Adrenaline Burst coiled within him, and he knew that forcing it to merge with Ryan's mana would likely tear his muscles apart. He hadn't even tested the skill's base side effects yet, but he guessed the combined backlash would be several times worse.
He glanced at Ryan. The other boy was deathly pale, his hands trembling as he gripped his sword. Ryan was pushing past his mana capacity. A backlash was almost certain.
'Will we even survive the aftermath?' Soren pondered.
