[Chp 13.5] When Roots Break Rocks

The cries of battle thundered across the jungle like a storm of iron and blood. From the high cliffs overlooking the Valley of Thorns, Malvera stood tall, watching the two armies surge like rivers of war into the verdant basin below. His stone armor gleamed under the midday sun, runes across his gauntlets pulsing with geo-magnetic light. Behind him, the legions of the Stoneforged stood in rigid ranks, eyes glowing faintly with the same power that coursed through their warlord. Below, the jungle roared. The soldiers of Dravara poured from the tree line, wearing woven bark-plate and adorned with glowing totems of emerald flame. Their chants reverberated across the trees, calling upon the spirits of the jungle. Empress Ziyana led them — not from behind — but at the very front, staff raised high, her long green hair billowing like a banner of nature’s fury. Malvera raised his hammer. With a deep breath that echoed like a landslide, he pointed it forward. The Stoneforged charged. Like boulders dislodged from a mountain, they thundered down the slope, shaking the very jungle with their descent. The ground cracked beneath their steps. Spears of magnetized stone flew through the air, tearing apart vines and shattering barklike armor. The armies collided in a soundless quake. For a moment, it was chaos. Blades against shields, war cries swallowed by explosions of magic and stone. Lightning arced through the air. Trees were uprooted and thrown like spears. The jungle screamed beneath their feet. And in the middle of it all, the two leaders walked. Malvera strode through the destruction, ignoring the screams and the blood. Where he walked, the stone followed, rising like guardians from the earth. Stone arms swatted aside enemies. His aura distorted the air with magnetism, bending thrown weapons away from his path. Ziyana stepped lightly but with fury in her wake. Her presence calmed the beasts, guided the winds, summoned thorned walls from roots that impaled her foes. Every breath she took brought new life to the jungle, even as death reigned around her. Vines parted for her like a divine tide. They met at the center. Between them, the bodies of warriors — from both sides — lay broken and silent. Nature twisted in grief and rage. The air was thick with pollen and ash. Somewhere behind them, the war continued, but here, in this sacred hollow surrounded by collapsing trees and dying giants, time itself seemed to halt. Ziyana narrowed her eyes. "You bring machines into a sacred grove. You rip the roots from the ground. You poison the land with metal and madness." Malvera raised an eyebrow. "I bring order. You let chaos reign." She tilted her head. "You confuse life for chaos. That is why you will lose." His grip on the hammer tightened. "I won’t lose. Not to overgrown weeds." Ziyana didn’t flinch. The wind slowed. The vines stilled. The earth held its breath. And then—they moved. Malvera’s hammer descended like a falling mountain, the air around it humming with magnetic energy. The weapon’s weight was immense, a testament to the earth’s raw strength forged into metal. It crashed toward Ziyana’s raised staff with a thunderous impact, sending a shockwave rippling through the clearing. The ancient stones beneath their feet cracked, fractures spiderwebbing outward as if the very ground was warning of the violence unleashed upon it. Ziyana was already shifting, graceful and swift. Her green eyes flickered with fierce determination as she twisted away from the hammer’s crushing blow. From the earth at her feet, thick vines erupted like living serpents, coiling upward with sudden, terrible speed. The tendrils wrapped around the hammer, absorbing and shattering the blow before it could crush her. Splinters of wood and cracked stone scattered across the ground. With a cry that echoed like the roar of the jungle itself, Ziyana surged forward, the green flames that clung to her staff flickering like a wild storm. The vines writhed and lashed out in tandem with her movement, seeking to bind Malvera’s legs, to hold the warlord fast. His bellow was a deep, primal sound, filled with fury and frustration. He slammed the haft of his hammer into the earth, fracturing the soil and shattering the grasping roots with a shower of broken wood. The ground beneath them trembled with the force of his charge. Malvera’s hammer swung again, a brutal arc that sent magnetic waves tearing through the air. The power of the earth itself seemed to pulse through him, a relentless force of nature focused into every strike. Ziyana moved like water in a storm — flowing, bending, never staying in one place too long. She ducked under the hammer’s sweeping blow, then sprang to her feet as her staff carved a glowing arc in the air, green fire licking the edge. Her voice rose, chanting in the ancient tongue of the jungle. The air grew thick with the scent of earth and rain, and the jungle answered. From the shattered trunks around them, thorned branches twisted and coiled, rising like living walls. They formed a cage of razor-sharp thorns and thick, twisting vines, encasing Malvera where he stood. His eyes burned with fierce defiance. The grip on his hammer tightened until his knuckles whitened. With a roar that shook the leaves from the highest branches, he slammed the hammer into the ground. The earth exploded in a pulse of magnetic energy, and great fists of stone burst forth from the dirt. They smashed against the thorned walls, breaking the cage into splinters of wood and torn vines. Ziyana’s face hardened as she met the warlord’s fierce glare. She reached down, her fingers sinking into the soil beneath her feet, and drew up the power that slept in the earth. The ground exploded upward like a great wave, sending a surge of roots and dirt rushing forward. The wave crashed into Malvera like a tidal force. He planted his hammer to brace himself and met the charge head-on. Stone shattered against root and soil in a cacophony of destruction. The jungle around them seemed to hold its breath, the tension hanging thick in the air. Then, a low growl rumbled through the trees, deep and terrifying. From the depths of the jungle’s heart, a colossal beast emerged. Its body was a writhing mass of bark and vines, its eyes glowing with the furious light of ancient spirits. A giant serpent, entwined with thorned branches and draped in leaves, hissed and coiled, preparing to strike. Malvera raised his hammer once more, the runes along its surface blazing with blinding light. With a roar that matched the beast’s fury, he unleashed a concentrated blast of magnetic force. The wave tore through the serpent, ripping the creature apart in a storm of splintered wood and shattered stone. The clearing fell silent, broken only by the heavy breaths of the two warriors. The air was thick with dust and the scent of crushed foliage. Around them, the jungle mourned, its ancient heart wounded but still alive. Ziyana stepped forward, voice soft yet unyielding. “This battle is but a beginning. It will not decide the fate of the jungle or the stone.” Malvera’s grip on his hammer eased, the tension in his shoulders shifting into something like respect. His voice was low but firm. “Then let the battle truly begin.” The clash of their wills sent ripples through the Valley of Thorns. Each strike from Malvera’s hammer was a quake that shook the very bones of the earth. Each counter from Ziyana’s staff was a surge of wild life that twisted and bent reality around them. Malvera’s armor glowed fiercely, runes blazing like ancient stars as he summoned the deep powers of the earth. Stone erupted beneath him, forming monstrous hands that reached out to grasp Ziyana, but she was a spirit of the forest — elusive and untamable. With a graceful leap, she soared over the grasping fists, her body lithe and fluid, moving like wind through branches. Her green flames crackled in the air, igniting thorny brambles that erupted from the ground in a tempest of nature’s wrath. The thorns sliced through the stone hands with a sickening crack, scattering fragments of rock like petals in a violent storm. Malvera growled in frustration, swinging his hammer with renewed force. The impact sent a shockwave rolling through the jungle, toppling trees and tearing chunks from the earth. Yet, Ziyana did not falter. She planted her staff and called forth a chorus of voices — ancient spirits awakened from slumber beneath the soil. Roots tore through the battlefield, weaving a labyrinth of thorned barriers that slowed the Stoneforged advance. Ghostly forms of ancestral protectors flickered into existence — ethereal warriors clad in leaf and bark, their eyes glowing with emerald light. They moved with silent fury, clashing against the legions of stone soldiers. Malvera’s eyes narrowed at the spirits. “Your ghosts cannot hold us forever!” With a roar, he stomped the ground, and the earth responded. Massive stone pillars burst from the jungle floor, crushing the spectral guardians into shimmering dust. The Stoneforged pressed forward, weapons swinging, their momentum unrelenting. But Ziyana’s fury was not just in magic. With a cry that echoed through the valley, she summoned a great beast — a colossal serpent made of intertwined vines and glowing leaves. The serpent reared, jaws snapping shut around a cluster of stone warriors, crushing armor and bone with terrifying power. The serpent’s scales shimmered with dew and light, each movement sending waves of life energy rippling outward. Where it passed, flowers bloomed even in the shattered earth. Malvera met the serpent’s strike with a thunderous blow. His hammer shattered scales and vines, but the beast’s life force pulsed stronger than ever. It retreated into the jungle shadows, leaving behind a trail of renewed growth. “Your jungle breathes, but it bleeds too,” Malvera said grimly, his voice like grinding stone. Ziyana’s eyes flashed. “Every wound heals, every branch regrows. What you build on bones and dust will crumble.” They circled each other, breaths heavy, the battlefield around them a scarred tapestry of nature and stone. The air was thick with the scent of earth and smoke, the cries of battle blending with the wild song of the jungle. Suddenly, Malvera raised his hammer skyward. The runes flared bright, and a column of magnetic energy tore through the clouds, summoning a tempest of stone shards. The shards hurtled downward like meteors, crashing into the jungle with explosive force. Ziyana lifted her staff, chanting words older than memory. The jungle answered her call, and the shattered earth began to knit itself together. Vines grew rapidly, weaving through the destruction, healing broken branches and sealing ruptured soil. The battle was not just physical — it was a contest of endurance, a test of who could command the land’s spirit with greater mastery. Malvera’s stone fortress grew taller, a jagged citadel rising from the jungle floor. Within its walls, his soldiers regrouped, their armor gleaming with newfound strength. Ziyana’s magic blossomed like a wildflower — untamed, vibrant, fiercely protective. She summoned a storm of emerald fire that danced along the edges of her armor, flames licking away smoke and ash. They clashed again — hammer against staff, earth against vine, stone against leaf — each blow echoing the fury of their cause. Malvera’s voice thundered. “I will carve order from your chaos!” Ziyana’s reply was a whispered vow carried on the wind. “And I will nurture life from the ruins you leave behind.” The jungle and mountain locked in eternal struggle, neither willing to yield. Malvera’s hammer swung again, each blow a crashing force that sent ripples through the very bones of the jungle. The ground beneath them shattered in great fissures, jagged cracks spiderwebbing outwards like veins through the earth. From these cracks, shards of obsidian and basalt sprang up, jagged spires that aimed to imprison Ziyana in a prison of stone. But Ziyana was no mere mortal to be caged by rock. She lifted her staff and cried out, her voice a melodic war chant that stirred the ancient spirits of the forest. The air grew heavy with the scent of rain and wildflowers. From the shattered soil, a bloom of thorned roses erupted, their crimson petals gleaming like drops of blood. The thorns twisted and writhed, forming serpentine coils that wrapped around the spires, breaking them apart with unyielding force. As the stone prison crumbled, Ziyana’s gaze locked with Malvera’s, fierce and unyielding. “You seek to bind life with your cold chains,” she said, voice steady despite the chaos. “But the forest will never be shackled.” Malvera’s lips curled into a grim smile. “And you, a wild thing, think you can bend order to your will?” Without warning, the ground beneath Ziyana surged upwards. Stone fists burst from the earth, towering and heavy, aiming to crush her beneath their weight. She leapt back with graceful agility, her feet barely touching the earth as she danced through the storm of stone. From her staff, emerald flames erupted, licking the air with verdant fire. The flames spread to the surrounding trees, igniting them not with destruction, but with a renewed vigor. Leaves shimmered with a spectral glow as the jungle rallied around its champion. Malvera grunted, swinging his hammer in a wide arc, sending a shockwave that tore through the canopy. Branches snapped like brittle bones, leaves showering down in a green rain. The jungle screamed in agony, but Ziyana’s magic surged stronger. She reached out with her will, summoning roots from the deepest earth. They burst through the broken ground, writhing like serpents, lashing out at the advancing Stoneforged soldiers. The roots wrapped around limbs, crushing stone armor and shattering shields with relentless force. Malvera roared in fury and slammed his hammer into the earth. The impact sent a quake rolling across the valley, shattering the roots and tossing Ziyana backwards. She landed on one knee, breath ragged but eyes burning with determination. The two leaders paused, the battlefield raging around them like a living tempest. The Stoneforged clashed with the jungle warriors, a chaotic symphony of steel and spirit, but here — in the eye of the storm — it was only Malvera and Ziyana. Malvera’s voice was low, almost a growl. “Your fury is impressive, but it cannot stem the tide.” Ziyana lifted her head, green flames flickering in her eyes. “You mistake control for strength. The jungle’s power is not just in force, but in resilience.” With a swift motion, she raised her staff high. The ground trembled, and a wave of emerald light cascaded over the battlefield. The wounded rose, the broken trees mended, and the fallen warriors stirred with renewed vigor. The jungle was alive, and it would fight until its last breath. Malvera narrowed his eyes. He could feel the pulse of raw nature pushing back against his carefully constructed order. But he was not one to yield. With a mighty shout, he called upon the earth itself. The valley trembled as colossal stone beasts, ancient guardians of the mountain, emerged from their slumber. Their eyes glowed with molten fury, and their bodies were carved from the very bedrock. The stone beasts roared and surged forward, their massive limbs crashing into the jungle forces. The spirits screamed in defiance, but the battle had taken a brutal turn. Ziyana’s staff glowed brighter than ever. She planted it firmly in the earth, drawing on the deepest well of the jungle’s power. Vines erupted from the soil, twisting and wrapping around the stone beasts, attempting to bind them. But the beasts shook the vines off with terrifying strength, their roars shaking the heavens. Malvera advanced, hammer raised, ready to crush whatever stood before him. The two leaders met again in a collision that sent shockwaves tearing through the air. Hammer struck staff, sending sparks and bursts of magic flying in every direction. For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then, with a cry that echoed like thunder, they broke apart, each retreating to gather strength for the next assault. The Valley of Thorns lay wounded beneath their feet, but the war was far from over. Ziyana’s breath came in shallow pulls as she steadied herself amid the chaos. Her fingers gripped the staff like a lifeline, its carved surface pulsing with ancient power. Around her, the jungle writhed—not in fear, but in defiance. The cries of beasts echoed through the canopy. Spirits flickered among the trees, their forms glowing with green fire, watching the duel between titans unfold. Malvera, undeterred, stalked forward through the detritus of their clash. His stone armor was cracked in places, exposing seams of glowing ore beneath, but his steps remained steady—deliberate. He raised his hammer again, resting it briefly on his shoulder, gaze locked on Ziyana. “You’re faltering,” he said, voice like crumbling cliffs. “Even the forest bleeds.” Ziyana inhaled deeply. The air smelled of moss and blood. “Then it bleeds with purpose.” She raised her staff once more. The sky, once a brilliant azure, darkened to a stormy green. Thunder rumbled above, and rain began to fall—not water, but golden droplets of life essence from the forest canopy. Where it touched the ground, moss sprang anew, and the dying breathed again. Ziyana moved, swift as a coursing river. Her staff became a blur, directing roots, winds, and spirit-beasts against her foe. A massive serpent of bark and vine burst from the trees, its emerald eyes glowing, jaws wide open. It lunged at Malvera, hissing like the earth itself. With a grunt, Malvera met the beast head-on, his hammer crashing against its skull. The force of the blow shattered the serpent into a hundred flowering vines. But even as it crumbled, another beast charged from behind—a panther-like form of thorns and bark leapt onto him, claws screeching against stone. Malvera roared and spun, flinging the creature off, then slammed his hammer into the ground once more. The earth groaned, and massive stone pillars shot up around him in a circle, forming a dome of shifting monoliths. From the cracks between them, iron sand spilled into the air, dancing in spirals before hardening into jagged spears. Ziyana’s eyes widened. The dome wasn’t just defense—it was a trap. The iron sand shot toward her, thousands of piercing bolts humming with magnetized force. She raised a wall of bark and spirit-wood, but the impact shattered it, tearing her shoulder open with a crack of pain. Blood spilled down her arm, mingling with the glowing rain. Still, she did not fall. Instead, she whispered a single word in the old tongue. The ground beneath Malvera’s dome exploded upward—not with roots, but with an ancient tree. Its bark was silver, its leaves burning with ghostly light. The tree wrapped its limbs around the stone dome, crushing it with a creaking moan. Malvera burst from the ruin like a landslide. Dust and debris scattered as he launched forward, hammer trailing with arcs of magnetic lightning. Ziyana met him, her staff intercepting the blow with a crash that shook the valley. For a moment, the two stood locked, faces inches apart. “You should have stayed in the deep woods,” Malvera growled. “You should have stayed in your cold mountains,” she hissed. Their energies exploded. Malvera’s magnetic field clashed with Ziyana’s life aura, distorting the space around them in shimmering waves. Trees bent. Gravity twisted. Time seemed to blur. Then they were a blur themselves—fighting, striking, parrying. Malvera struck the ground, creating a shockwave that launched Ziyana into the air. As she fell, she summoned a gust of wind to catch her, twisting midair to fling her staff like a spear. It struck Malvera squarely in the chest, knocking him back into a shattered pillar. He pulled it from his armor with a snarl, hurling it aside. Ziyana landed and summoned a storm of petals and thorns, slicing through the battlefield in a cyclone of green. Malvera answered with a storm of magnetic shards that danced around him like a swarm of daggers. The two storms collided with an ear-splitting roar. When the dust cleared, both stood—bloody, battered, but unbowed. The jungle around them was no longer lush. It was scarred. Trees lay in ruin. The ground was scorched and broken. The once-verdant Valley of Thorns had become a graveyard of titans. And still the war raged behind them. Stoneforged soldiers clashed with jungle warriors in desperate fury. Elemental beasts roared and fell. Spirits screamed and scattered. The battle had become more than just a fight for land—it was a battle of beliefs, of legacy, of survival itself. Malvera looked up, his breath ragged. “You don’t know what’s coming, Ziyana. This land… it won’t survive the age that follows unless it changes.” Ziyana, chest heaving, voice shaking with fatigue and power, responded, “Then let it change through growth, not conquest.” Their next steps were slow. Each one a promise of finality. Blood trailed behind them. Their magic flickered like dying stars. But neither would yield. The wind died. The earth fell silent. Even the cries of warriors in the distance faded, as if the world itself had gone breathless. Something was coming. Ziyana and Malvera stared at one another—exhausted, wounded, and yet, their eyes burned brighter than ever. The forest behind Ziyana stirred not from wind, but from energy. The roots, the trees, the spirits, even the ancient stones seemed to tremble in anticipation. Malvera’s gauntlets cracked open along their seams, releasing spirals of golden magnetic dust. His hammer vibrated with such force it began levitating, metal shards floating around it in orbit. The runes across his chest glowed white-hot, no longer mere enchantments, but conduits of a core power buried deep in the bones of the mountains from which he’d been forged. Ziyana closed her eyes. Her staff crumbled to petals. Her body pulsed with an inner light that resonated with every living thing in the jungle. Flowers bloomed from her bleeding wounds. Vines slithered beneath her skin like veins of the earth. She whispered words in a language forgotten even by the spirits—and they listened. Lightning flashed from a cloudless sky. The ground buckled beneath them. Then—Their power exploded. From Malvera, a magnetic pulse radiated in a ring of white-gold force, obliterating stone, ripping bark from trees, and causing iron buried deep in the soil to rise in jagged pillars. Armor from both ally and foe shattered or bent, drawn toward him as though the planet itself was obeying his will. His body was wreathed in a blinding corona of gravity-warping energy, and his voice—when he roared—could be heard across the valley like a tectonic cry. Ziyana answered. Her scream was wordless, yet layered with the chorus of nature itself. The forest erupted around her. Trees hundreds of years old bent toward her, merging, shifting, reshaping into a massive being of bark, vine, and spirit flame. She rose above the battlefield on tendrils of living root, her form glowing emerald and gold, her eyes now windows into the soul of the world. All across the jungle, creatures stopped and turned. All across the cliffs, soldiers dropped their weapons, awestruck. Even the dead seemed to twitch, touched by the energy radiating outward. The battlefield became silent once again—not out of peace, but reverence. A storm unlike any seen before began to form above them. Not of rain, but of light and spirit. Golden fire and obsidian dust spiraled upward into the heavens as if the realm was struggling to contain what these two had become. From the ranks of the Stoneforged, a captain fell to his knees, whispering, “My Warlord… he’s not a man. He’s the mountain itself.” From the Dravaran warriors, a shaman clutched her heart. “She’s… become Gaia. The soul of this forest made flesh.” Then they clashed. No longer with weapons—but with forces. Malvera raised his hand, and gravity itself bent. Trees uprooted, stones hovered, rivers reversed. Metal groaned and screamed, forming blades and axes and spears of pure magnetic force that swirled around him like a living forge. Ziyana answered with life. Her arms spread wide, and vines thicker than towers erupted from the soil. Animals made of pure spirit-fire joined her side—an eagle with wings of thunderclouds, a stag with antlers of crystal, a serpent made of molten root and sunfire. They collided like gods. The shockwave carved a canyon through the battlefield, splitting earth and sky. Mountains in the distance trembled. Waves surged along distant shores. Storm clouds raced away from the epicenter in all directions. Malvera summoned a ring of gravity so dense it folded the light around it, and hurled it at Ziyana. Ziyana responded by calling forth a seed of eternity—something buried long ago. She thrust it into the ground and from it burst a colossal tree, so massive and radiant it cracked the sky. The ring struck it, and instead of breaking, the tree absorbed the force, its branches growing into the stormclouds. But Malvera wasn’t finished. His body broke apart—not in death, but in ascension. He became light and stone, spirit and magnetism. His hammer reformed in the air, massive as a fortress, and came crashing down—Only to be caught. Ziyana, now twenty feet tall and glowing like a sun through leaves, held it with both hands, her vines anchoring her to the planet itself. And for a heartbeat, they locked again—this time not in hatred, but understanding. They had become something more. Something vast. And somewhere deep within the forest… something ancient awoke. The hammer quivered in Ziyana’s grasp, its weight no longer just metal, but the wrath of a mountain condensed into a single blow. Malvera hovered before her, no longer flesh or stone, but a being of gravitational will, glowing veins of molten metal threading through his form, his once cold, calculating eyes now aflame with desperate fury. Ziyana gritted her teeth, her hands bleeding sap and light as the spirits of the jungle howled around her, the roots beneath her feet surging with ancient resolve, whispering of balance, of protection, of sacrifice. The hammer cracked. Ziyana screamed—not in pain, but in the rapturous agony of transformation—as her being lit with a brilliance so pure it scorched the very sky. Her vines exploded outward, coiling around the hammer, the shards, even Malvera himself, and with one final, devastating pull, she ripped it apart into a storm of golden dust. Malvera reeled, his form flickering and destabilizing, struggling to reforge the pieces with sheer will as he gasped, “No…” but the jungle had already passed judgment. Behind Ziyana, the great tree bloomed in full, casting radiant light over the battlefield as flowers burst from every wound in the land, moss grew over blood-soaked earth, vines embraced shattered weapons, and the spirits sang—not of war, but mourning and rebirth. Ziyana stepped forward, and Malvera collapsed to one knee, his chest heaving, his essence fracturing as he rasped, “I brought order…” but she knelt before him, her hand reaching not to strike but to offer connection, her fingers brushing his chest as light flowed from her into him, soothing, forgiving. His body, for the first time, relaxed. He looked at her, truly looked, and said, “I only wanted to build something that would last.” “You tried to carve eternity into a world that grows,” she whispered. “You cannot freeze life and expect it to thrive.” And then, for the first and final time, Malvera smiled—not in bitterness, not in pride, but in peace—as his body crumbled into ash and stone and returned to the earth, leaving behind a swirling ring of metal and dust that sank into the soil, from which a single sapling sprouted, its leaves metallic, its stem inscribed with runes. Ziyana stood alone in the hollow as the spirits faded, their task complete, the animals of light dissolved into ether, and the great tree behind her fell into a gentle silence. The battlefield grew still. The world, once more, held its breath. Voragoth stood atop the jagged hill, the broken bones of the earth beneath his feet. Beside him, Zero’s eyes burned with quiet intensity, Seraphyne’s wings tense like a coiled blade, and Azareth radiated raw, crackling power. The air was thick with foreboding silence—until a subtle shift reached Voragoth’s senses, cold and final. Malvera had fallen. A slow, cruel smile spread across Voragoth’s lips. The mountain shatters… and so will they all. Without hesitation, he turned to Azareth. “Release one.” Azareth’s dark eyes gleamed, and he lifted his arms toward the heavens. Above the kingdom, colossal meteors hung suspended like ancient gods awaiting command—fiery behemoths forged in the crucible of the cosmos. One broke away, its surface molten and cracked, seething with raw energy. It plummeted with terrifying speed. The sky cracked open as the meteor screamed earthward, trailing a blazing inferno that ignited the very air. Below, the kingdom’s walls trembled as if sensing death itself. The first impact tore into the outer gates like thunderclaps smashing glass. Stone and steel exploded outward in a violent spray of debris. The ground beneath the city ruptured, gaping fissures swallowing streets and buildings whole. Lava-like rivers of molten rock surged, consuming everything in their path—homes, markets, and fields alike. Towers crumbled, their stones pulverized into dust that swirled in choking clouds. Trees snapped like twigs, their charred remains raining down like ash from a burning sky. Citizens screamed as firestorms spiraled up, consuming the air in a suffocating heat. Lightning danced through the swirling ash, illuminating desperate figures fleeing into the ruins. The earth itself convulsed, sending shockwaves that shattered windows miles away and cracked the bones of the mountains beyond. Voragoth’s eyes never left the inferno. “Let this be a lesson etched in flame. From these ashes, the weak will be purged.” Zero’s gaze hardened; Seraphyne’s wings unfurled, glowing with spectral light. The destruction was only the beginning.