'What a nuisance,' thought Aldrich, sizing Nico up. Volantis outlined a see-through view of the capo's body, highlighting in faint red the heart and the tissue surrounding it. Nico had taken damage to his heart, but it had not been crushed.
At best, it caused some internal damage which, though it must have been excruciatingly painful, and indeed, more than enough to knock out the ordinary man, did not put down a superhuman Alter of Nico's caliber.
'That curse was infallible,' said Volantis. 'And it succeeded. I sense its dark energies had held a tight grasp around this warrior's heart.'
'I felt the spell go through as well.' Aldrich felt his mana dip down a bit. In gaining so many levels, he had distributed his stats heavily towards magic, giving him a much, much larger mana pool. Even then, [Heart Hold] was a considerably costly spell whose cost actually scaled with how strong the unit afflicted by it was.
