Before long, Vashno emerged onto the surface. From this vantage, the prison seemed deceptively small, yet he knew its depths stretched over a hundred floors underground. Around it, sprawling structures and facilities dotted the landscape—but many belched thick, dark smoke into the night sky. People ran through the chaos, their screams swallowed by the roar of destruction.
The white fog that enveloped much of the continent seemed to avoid this area. The settlements of the locals remained untouched, shrouded only in darkness. Vashno considered investigating why, but instinct told him that survival came first.
"This is…?"
He craned his neck upward and his eyes widened in disbelief.
The sky was alive with a storm of energy. Blinding flashes of color lit the night as the earth trembled violently beneath him. The air itself seemed to boil, an invisible pressure forcing ordinary people to collapse, clutching their heads in agony.
