Bruce glanced sideways at Duke...
Duke's palm remained pressed against the frozen earth. Beads of sweat rolled down his temple, cutting faint lines through frost. His jaw was tight. Veins stood out along his forearm, muscles straining beneath his sleeve as if he were holding up a collapsing sky.
The air around him warped faintly, rippling in slow distortions.
Bruce felt it now. The strain.
SSS-tier beasts were not like lesser creatures. They weren't mindless predators bound by instinct alone. They possessed mass. Not just physical, but existential. They pressed against the structure of reality itself, and containing twelve of them simultaneously was like trying to hold twelve detonations inside a closed fist.
Spatial Lock was absolute control. But against beings of this magnitude, it was contested.
Duke's eyes flickered toward Bruce, steady despite the tension burning through his frame.
"Move."
That was all he said.
