[A few minutes before]
Strax's death didn't arrive like a final blow.
There wasn't a decisive impact, nor a clear instant where everything simply ended.
It was… dissolution.
Slow.
Methodical.
Inevitable.
As his body began to disintegrate in the physical world, as his legs ceased to exist and his material form yielded to what wasn't exactly destruction, Strax perceived something that disturbed him more than any pain could.
It wasn't fire.
Not in the usual sense.
There was no heat burning flesh.
There was no pain tearing nerves.
There was no visible destruction.
The white flames consumed… something else.
He felt it clearly.
They weren't burning his body.
They were burning his continuity.
As if every particle of him was being convinced that it no longer needed to exist.
A gentle, yet absolute denial.
"…So that's it," he murmured internally, watching his own hand crumble to dust, his fingers disintegrating like ashes carried by a non-existent wind.
It was elegant.
