The shift was subtle at first, so subtle that even Lector almost missed it, but Heriot did not. The air around Enjin changed as though something within him had been unlocked rather than triggered.
His breathing slowed, his stance relaxed instead of tightening, and the faint strain that had shown earlier began to disappear, replaced by a quiet, controlled stillness that felt far more dangerous than his previous aggression.
It wasn't the exhaustion of a man nearing defeat; it was the calm of someone who had decided to stop holding back.
Heriot's eyes narrowed sharply as the vibrations he had woven into the battlefield began to distort unpredictably. His Sound System had been shaping perception, bending Enjin's awareness and disrupting his reactions, but now it felt as though those distortions were being resisted, no, not resisted, understood.
"Lector..," he said quietly, his voice low but urgent, "...something's wrong. He's adapting too fast."
