Alex barely had time to react.
"Tch—!"
A sharp whistle cut through the air, and an instant later, pain erupted in his left arm.
"AGH!" He cursed out loud, instinctively jumping back just before a massive clawed limb swept through the space he'd just occupied.
The sheer force of the attack left deep trenches in the ground, molten lava spilling into them like a cracked dam.
'Fuck!' Alex gritted his teeth, glancing at his arm.
A deep gash ran from his shoulder down to his forearm, but at least he still had it. A second slower, and he might not have been so lucky.
'Damn it... I didn't even see the attack coming.'
He landed on a jagged rock formation, breathing heavily as his eyes darted between the two figures standing before him.
One of them was a towering monstrosity of obsidian and magma, its entire body a walking fortress.