Chapter 169: The Dungeon Clearance
The clearing was a ruin of black smoke and dissolving Ogre corpses, the air thick with the coppery tang of blood and the sharp, lingering scent of ozone from my Judgment Chain.
The adrenaline of the three-minute slaughter was still thrumming in my veins, a high-pitched vibration against my nerves.
The rogue twins, Riker and Kael, were breathing heavily, their faces pale but their eyes blazing with the fierce, wild light of survivors.
Sila, our archer, was already calmly retrieving her arrows from the fallen, her movements economical, professional.
And Marcus... my brother stood apart, wiping his simple longsword clean on a patch of untainted grass.
He looked as if he'd just finished a light warm-up, his breathing perfectly even, his cultivator's poise an unsettling mask of calm in the midst of the carnage.
