For a moment the world stood still as an unnatural flow of mana was felt right where the cold, gloved hand of Vexxen had grabbed his gloved hand, somehow permeating through touch despite being separated by multiple layers of cloth, quickly being ingrained in Leyk's mind and Cades subconsciousness, both of them believing this to be something important as they stared into Vexxen's mirrored mask that was now reflecting their very own mask, a mask that they had never truly seen before.
It was weird when they thought about it.
Until now, each time they had looked into the mask of Vexxen he had seen himself, his face, a face that was no longer his, and he hadn't thought about the mask he was still feeling as it laid atop his face, but now, he saw a mask, and he didn't even realize that it had changed at all, he simply went with it, looking at the new mask he had never seen before, even though he had been certain to have seen his mask at least once before.
Now, however, it was different.
His mask, looking black in the mirrored one, was calm, serene, accepting, it was a true depiction of him who was now calm and serene, his fear having wandered into the background, both of them, his subconsciousness and his consciousness having accepted death, though Cades seemed to have ben the first to truly do so, leading him to get closer to death as soon as he truly appeared.
Now, however, the fight began anew, the short moment of respite as Cades began to form and Leyk and Vexxen met eyes as they stared into each other's mask, gone, instead the mirrored mask being replaced with something else, something that Leyk should've been expecting but hadn't expected, even though it was so obvious in hindsight.
A short and straight punch was aimed straight at his fist, four fingers in the front, the thump to the side, as was normal, as was good to keep ones hand protected, though it looked a bit weird due to the way it was made with the cloth, it looked almost like a face with four eyes and a huge mouth with lips to the side, funny as Leyk absentmindedly noted, as if to distract himself from the fact a fist was aimed straight at his fa-
For a moment he felt as if the world shook, and perhaps it did, because this attack was stronger than before, quite a bit so, as if the man was annoyed by Leyk's attempt to get closer, and even more so by his repeated obsession with cutting him, both things Leyk and Cades would've reacted onto the same way, and both things they could understand in a normal situation as well as this one, though they were still angry right now, after all, it was different when one was on the losing side, the other side, the side that they were normally not on, quite obviously, as they were still alive and kicking, at least Leyk, if Cades was still alive and kicking, that was more so a question for the ag-
Leyk flew back, but he didn't lose his footing, simply because he still had the steadfast active awakened, he still had it activated, but the storm of thoughts wouldn't stop, he felt anecdotes, metaphors he should never think up, ideas for skills he would never come to use in the current situation, he didn't know what was going on, but he was certain it had something to do with the bluish glint from that fist that had just hit him, something that had caused him to accelerate his thoughts to this degree, yet never truly finishing them, at least until now where the impact of that powerful punch was truly over and eh was beginning to stumble back, the light of dominion, that bismuth-like thingy his opponent had bene proven to be prone of using, it must've been related to tha-
Why hadn't he thought of this?
Why had neither Leyk nor Cades protected the body?
Of course there would've been a second attack!
Why in heaven's name would he have stopped at just one attack when he could just attack multiple times, perhaps even figuring out why Leyk was consistently healing, one of the main reasons he was, partially to his dismay, still alive and well enough to feel pain, though this time, at least, the attack hadn't been to the face, and neither to the throat that should've been exposed right now, something that would've most likely been enough to knock him out, perhaps even killing him, if the man decided it wasn't worth it to wait until he awoke once more, if the man decided he wasn't interesting eno-
The next punch was straight to the stomach, and it was just as powerful as the one before, be it that this one was less received because he simply didn't concentrate as much on the stomach as he was able to perceive and concentrate on his head, it still hurt like hel-
It was there again, the light, the mana, but this time, it was weird, it wasn't within the body like mana of this nature should normally be, mana used for close-range of this nature, when casting magic by touching, it was outside, like it was back when he had first awoken mana and caused that gigantic golem to fall over, something he still wasn't able to entirely replicate, at least not using the same technique, though he would be able to destroy the golem without any troubles either way, that's for sure...
Was this aura?
Blood flowed from under Leyk's mask, slowly escaping and quickly catching the eyes of the mirrored man, of Vexxen, who was inclined to seemingly weaken himself after that, because the next few attacks turned out to be quite a lot weaker, though they were somehow still able to turn around his thoughts, to break up what he was thinking, what he was doin-
THE INTENT !!!!!
That was it, wasn't it?
Was that what aura was?