Malik didn't waste time.
He moved—no, he disappeared, the ground beneath him exploding in fire as he used Devil's Footsteps to propel himself forward.
The Jinn saw it, expected it.
His hands shot up, summoning spires of ice in Malik's direct path.
But Malik didn't stop.
With a sharp twist of his body, he angled Spine Splitter in mid-air, slicing clean through the ice spires before they could fully form, shattering them into useless chunks.
The Jinn's eyes narrowed as he jumped back—landing near a cluster of half-melted ice boulders—but that didn't change anything.
Malik was already on him.
Clang!
Their weapons met, sparks and frost clashing.
The enemy Jinn had intercepted Malik's downward slash with just enough angle to redirect it to the side.
A perfect deflection.
But Malik wasn't a one-note fighter.
With a flicker, he was gone—no, not gone.
His afterimage remained in place, swinging again.
The Jinn's instinct screamed at him.
