The rubble crackled. Dust drifted like a dying mist over the shattered terrain of what used to be the grandest coliseum in Aetheris. The air was heavy, not just with debris, but with something unnatural—wrong.
Kaelen slowly stirred, his armor cracked, blood trickling down his forehead. His breathing was shallow, yet his eyes remained locked on the single levitating being that hadn't moved since the cataclysm.
Cough!! Cough!!
Reeves groaned nearby, clutching his shoulder as Kelvin, battered but breathing, rose to one knee. Marel, covered in ash and blood, struggled to pull a broken Forbes to safety—his body scorched from his battle with the five-fingered dragon, which now lay still and decayed like it was never real to begin with.
Guinevere, Morris, Lila, and the others staggered to their feet one after another. And no matter how wounded, their eyes were drawn to the being in the sky, hovering in silence, like the eye of an unknowable storm.
