Time slowed to a heartbeat. I could see the individual salt crystals on Lyra's skin. I could see the desperation in her eyes—the look of a woman who had lost everything and wanted to make sure I lost it too.
I didn't flinch. I didn't even raise my hands.
"Logic," I whispered, "is the study of predictable outcomes."
Just as her claws were about to tear through my carotid artery, I tilted my head one inch to the left. The violet energy grazed my skin, drawing a thin line of blood, but the momentum was hers, and I had already calculated the weight of it.
I grabbed her wrist.
My touch was Golden. I didn't blast her; I channeled a surge of Pinnacle-tier energy directly into her nervous system, overriding her Impulse control. Her Purple aura flickered and died instantly, like a candle in a vacuum.
"The fight ended ten seconds ago, Lyra," I said. "You just didn't notice."
I spun her around and drove my palm into the small of her back. The force wasn't explosive—it was a focused, heavy pressure that sent her skimming across the ground, away from the house and toward the edge of the collapsing cliff.
She hit the dirt, sliding until her legs dangled over the abyss. She tried to rise, but the Golden Impulse I had injected into her system was acting like a lead weight, pinning her to the earth.
I stood over her, the Golden aura around me slowly receding, leaving me in my dusty lab coat, looking like nothing more than a tired old man.
"Go back to Valerius," I said, my voice carrying over the sound of the crumbling rock. "Tell her that the next person she sends won't be given a lesson. They will be given a grave."
Lyra looked up at me, the madness in her eyes replaced by a hollow, terrifying realization. "You... you've reached it, haven't you? The true Pinnacle. You aren't just using the Light, Kwame. You've become the constant."
I didn't answer. I turned my back on her—the ultimate insult—and walked toward my sons.
The house was a wreck. The porch was gone, the windows were shards, and the salt air was thick inside the living room. Adam and Eve stood there, silhouetted by the moonlight. They looked at me as if they were seeing a stranger.
Eve was the first to speak, his voice uncharacteristically small. "You... you really killed all those people? In the desert?"
I didn't look at him. I couldn't. I looked at Adam.
Adam was staring at his own hands. He was seeing the potential for that same cold, effortless violence within himself. He was seeing that his "logic"—the thing he used to distance himself from the "fragile" humans—was exactly what made me such a terrifying killer.
"You were wondering why I don't 'twitch the wheel,' Adam," I said, my voice echoing in the ruined house. "You think you're a monster because you see the world as math? You think your lack of empathy makes you superior?"
I stepped closer, and for the first time in his life, Adam took a step back.
"I didn't beat her because I'm stronger," I said. "I beat her because I calculated every breath she took before she even drew that sword. I saw her life, her power, and her death as a simple equation, and I solved it."
I leaned in, my shadow falling over him.
"Maybe," I added, the coldness in my heart finally reaching my lips, "you inherited your logic from me after all. And believe me, son... that's not a compliment. It's a curse."
I walked past them, heading toward the kitchen to find a glass of water. My hands were perfectly steady.
"Clean up the glass," I called out over my shoulder. "We leave at dawn."