For the first time since the clash between the summoner and the black-marked familiar began, Valachi showed fear.
The emotion was so strange to his face that for a moment, even Master Sung—battered, bloodied, and kneeling on the devastated ground—couldn't comprehend what he was witnessing.
Fear wasn't an expression that belonged on the face of a creature that had descended from the black-marked section of Astral Shadow Plane, especially on someone like Valachi who had the confidence of a god among mortals.
Yet there it was, unmistakably clear across Valachi's pale, scaled face.
The fear wasn't radiating from Valachi simply because Ryder was the Dracogon's soon-to-be summoner—though that alone should have been enough to make any black-marked familiar reconsider their actions.
However, this terror was something he was feeling from Ryder himself. It was because of Ryder's very core at this moment—his aura was... inhuman.
