The white light that had taken Akhil barely faded before Jeren moved again.
No pause for questions. No moment to process what had just happened, what they'd just witnessed, what the system had just declared. The tournament master's hand rose with the same mechanical precision he'd used to transport the Monarch's vessel, and this time the light took everyone.
Nyla felt the pull an instant before it activated—her enhanced cold-sense registering the buildup of energy—but there was no time to resist. The arena dissolved around her and reformed in the span of a heartbeat, and when her vision cleared she was back in her designated combat box, barriers solidified, the platform beneath her feet humming with renewed containment energy.
