The next hammer fell.
It wasn't louder than the last.
It wasn't faster.
It was simply heavier—as if the mountain itself had leaned down and pressed a finger against Luca's existence.
The impact didn't strike his body.
It struck through it.
A crushing, inward collapse ripped across his chest, folding breath out of his lungs in a single violent instant. His vision detonated into white static, every nerve screaming at once as the force doubled—cleanly, mercilessly—without care for bone, muscle, or will.
Luca's knees buckled.
He barely managed to remain upright for half a heartbeat before his body betrayed him completely.
"—Kgh—!"
He turned sharply to the side and vomited.
Blood splashed against the obsidian floor, dark and steaming as it hit stone already heated by the crucible. It wasn't a trickle. It wasn't a stain.
It was proof.
