Hiroshi stood over Marcus with the void-blade frozen a mere inch from the man's exposed throat. His arm was locked in a violently vibrating stalemate between two warring wills, the Monster screaming for a slaughter, and his own frayed humanity desperately hitting the brakes.
Then, something in the atmosphere shifted.
On the ground, Marcus exhaled a long, ragged breath. His violently burnt hands, which had been lying open and defenseless in the gray ash, slowly curled into tight fists.
Hiroshi felt the change before his eyes could even process it. A sudden warmth washed over the crater. It wasn't the aggressive, pressurized, suffocating heat of Marcus's earlier divine transformation. This was fundamentally different.
Marcus was pulling his fractured divine power inward, drawing it back from the brink.
