The boiling plumes of pulverized granite gradually lost their fury, thinning into a pale, ash-laden fog that drifted across the sunken basin on exhausted drafts. Loose shale clattered down the concave slopes, small stones bouncing along the newly formed rifts until the subterranean bedrock settled into a brittle, ringing stillness. Above, the jagged fissures running across the realm's vaulted dome stopped their violent expansion, the weeping spatial cracks knitting closed with faint, glassy reverberations.
A heavy silence descended over the ruined expanse.
Across the shattered arena, the surviving contingents stood frozen behind the remnants of their defensive formations. Cultivators from the Moonlight Pavilion, the elders of the Howling Abyss Sect, and the bloodied imperial guards remained rooted in place, their knuckles white over the grips of their weapons, their eyes pinned to the center of the devastation.
