The silence following Gareth's death did not last long. It was a fragile thing, shattered instantly by the sound of Captain Varkas's boots hitting the mercury-slicked mud. The impact was not a landing; it was a declaration of war. The Low Justiciar did not wait for his partner to coordinate. He did not wait for Vane to recover his breath. He simply moved.
Varkas initiated his Physical Aura. The white-gold light erupted from his pores, condensing into a visible, shimmering shell of high-density mana. To Vane's Target Analysis, the man's danger level spiked from fatal to something nearly impossible to quantify. The air in front of the Captain was physically pushed aside, creating a vacuum that whistled as he surged forward.
