Chapter 5953

Boom thundered through the field like a stone hammering a vast bell.

Then the blade-light met shield and barrier, not with an explosion but with a sickening hiss, the sound of a hot knife sinking into fat.

In Jared’s widened eyes the four-hued arc slid forward as if nothing existed to slow it, parting Morven’s black shield and shredding Malcolm’s ninefold blood screen.

The shield burst. The screen fractured. Both men vomited blood and were flung hundreds of yards, a bone-deep gash burning across each of them.

Morven’s left arm severed at the shoulder; Malcolm’s right chest blown straight through, the wound crawling with four hostile forces that would not let the blood clot.

The glowing blade-wind died out, spent.

A pulse of backlash punched Jared’s ribs; he coughed up more blood and tasted iron.