Chapter 166: Adrian’s Wrath (1)
One moment the guards were chanting, their faces contorted in expressions of aggression; the next, every single one of them was on the ground with their limbs splayed awkwardly.
A collective gasp ripped through the air, followed by a chorus of wet coughs. Some clutched at their throats, eyes wide and bulging, desperate for air that refused to enter their lungs.
Others convulsed as a thin trickle of blood escaped their lips. They thrashed weakly, bewildered, their minds unable to comprehend the invisible force that had so utterly incapacitated them.
They were fish out of water, suffocating in an atmosphere suddenly devoid of oxygen.
Adrian let his aura linger for a few agonizing seconds, an oppressive blanket of power that crushed their spirits and bodies alike.
Then, with a silent command, he retracted it, though a lingering phantom of its weight remained in the air.
He stepped over their prone forms, his boots crunching softly on the wet gravel. No one dared to block his path.
He continued deeper into the palace, the only sound the rhythmic clang of his armor and the persistent drumming of the rain.
It wasn’t long before more oblivious guards, deeper within the sprawling complex, discovered him.
They, too, cried out, preparing to engage, but Adrian simply let them experience what their comrades at the entrance had endured.
The same invisible force, the same instantaneous collapse, the same desperate struggle for breath.
But as he moved to step past this new wave of incapacitated figures, something made him stop.