Vanguard Commander Varkos did not appreciate culinary advice from teenagers.
“I will flay your skin into sailcloth, you little parasite!” Varkos bellowed, his voice shaking the stone jetty.
Purple Star-Marrow flames roared along the six-foot blade of his black iron cleaver. The air around the vanguard commander distorted with murderous heat, boiling the puddle of spilled tea at Kaelen’s feet.
Elder Sterling leaped forward, his twin silver short swords humming with wind-blade Qi. “Stand behind me, Lord Sovereign! I shall hold this monster!”
Sterling crossed his blades in an iron scissor-block, channeling his Spirit Domain wind arts to intercept the descending cleaver.
CLANG.
The impact rang like a cracked cathedral bell. The sheer kinetic weight of Varkos’s strike hammered Sterling into the wharf, cracking the granite beneath the elder’s knees. Purple Star-Marrow flames hissed along the silver steel, blistering the old man’s forearms and throwing him backward across the timber pilings.
“Weak!” Varkos roared, kicking Sterling’s fallen blades into the harbor water. “A mainland elder with paper bones!”
