Davis stood under the noon sun with that sentence still sitting in his mouth like something he had not meant to swallow.
He imagined winning should have felt heavier and real. It should have felt like a realm secured or a tribulation crossed and claimed, yet there was only the empty sky above his head, and no one was coming. He did not know what to do with a victory that arrived when the mind had already decided it was still in a state of fleeing.
The victory didn't feel real as he feared that they might descend just as he let his guard down.
He swept his senses across the continent again. The edges, the space above, every fold where a pair of Verdant Seraph Wings might sweep through unnoticed or the Celestial Transcendent's gaze might press down. Nothing answered his probe, even as he became a rude person and investigated people who didn't seem related to his problems with Heart Intent.
