---
Ash drifted around him like snow. The battlefield had become a graveyard of steaming corpses and crushed ambition. Blood pooled in craters, bone fragments jutted like broken teeth from the mud. Bodies of three frogkin and many ant warriors alike—were scattered in every direction, twisted in defeat. Even the air reeked of iron, bile, and something ancient that didn't belong in this world.
Kai was silent.
Steam curled off his shoulders. His aura pulsed faintly along the edges, glowing red-black with the dust. His hands were slick, dripping gore onto the cracked stone. He didn't move. He didn't need to. The entire world moved around him now.
Azhara arrived at Kai's location and skidded to a stop beside a smoking crater, chest heaving as she took in the aftermath.
Her eyes scanned the carnage, widening with disbelief. Dozens of bodies. Frogs dismembered. Ants dissolved in acid. The battlefield looked like it had been swallowed by a god's tantrum.
She swallowed hard.
