A soft silence settled after the explosion.
Where once a forest had stood, there now lay only a leveled, snowy field—scarred and scorched. Splintered trees jutted from the earth like broken stakes, and not a single trace of the monster army remained. Just silence... and snow drifting through the still air.
From beneath the snow, Maley and Bailey burst out, shaking their heads like startled cats, flakes clinging stubbornly to their hair and ears.
The rest of the party stirred slowly, rising one by one, their bodies coated in frost, their expressions dazed by the blast's raw power.
And then, their eyes found him.
Damon stood in the center of the devastation, back-to-back with what remained of the monster.
Only its legs were left.
The rest of its towering body had disintegrated into ash, crumbling into black dust that scattered into the air—erased from existence. The ground around Damon was stained red, blood spraying from his chest wound in a frenzied rhythm.
