Cruzer's blade sliced through nothing but void, the space around him rippling from the sheer force of his swing, yet the moment he realized he had missed, his instincts flared like warning bells screaming in the depths of his mind, urging him to move, to react, to prepare—
But it was already too late.
A hand, cold as the abyss itself, closed around his wrist.
It wasn't the grip of an ordinary warrior. It wasn't the firm, battle-worn grasp of a fighter who had trained his entire life to hone his physical strength to perfection. No, this was something else entirely—a touch that seemed to seep beyond flesh and bone, a presence that didn't just hold him in place but reached into the void itself, tethering him in a way that defied everything he had learned, everything he had mastered, everything he thought he understood.
Cruzer's eyes darted forward, expecting to see Vael standing just beyond his reach, some trace of movement, some blur of teleportation, some flicker of displacement—
