[Armed Eternals PoV]
I had already committed to the strike when I realized something was wrong.
My blade had cut cleanly through domains before. I had split worlds where filtration fields like this one were considered absolute. The horizontal arc of deathmist I released was not reckless, it was measured, layered, refined through centuries of combat. It should have shaved away that dome piece by piece, forcing collapse through attrition.
Instead, it stopped.
I saw everything unfold, and still I could not comprehend it.
This was a human, by every definition I knew, yet he stopped our attack as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience. Essence clung to him, threaded through every channel, every breath, every movement, and yet at the same time he wielded deathmist in quantities and purity that should have been impossible. The two forces did not clash within him. They did not repel each other. They coexisted.
That alone was unsettling.
