The silence spread.
Where the King once stood, there was nothing. Not a corpse, not broken armor, only fragments of dust carried by the wind. The battlefield groaned under its own ruin, but no roar followed, no command, no shadow pressing down.
The impossible had happened.
For a long moment, no one moved. Soldiers of both sides froze mid-motion, weapons raised but forgotten. Spells guttered out in unfinished arcs, their casters staring skyward, unwilling to believe their eyes. The towering presence that had anchored the war was gone.
Ren remained at the center. Cloak shredded, blood streaking his jaw, black-blue fog curling slowly around him as though alive. His chest rose and fell with uneven rhythm, every breath tearing at battered lungs, but he did not collapse. He stood, and that was enough.
