The battlefield was silent.
The sky, once blackened with smoke and fury, had calmed into a gray stillness, as if the heavens themselves mourned.
Amid the shattered earth, fallen weapons, and broken banners, there stood a single figure—unmoving, resolute.
Herios. Or what remained of him.
His corpse stood upright, planted like a monument to defiance.
His eyes, once fierce and commanding, were closed gently now, like a warrior at rest.
No wind stirred his cloak, no birds circled above.
The world, it seemed, had paused to grieve.
And at his feet knelt Kaerion.
His right arm was gone, torn away in the final charge against the divine constructs. His body bore the wounds of battle like scripture. Dried blood caked his face, and his breathing was shallow, raspy.
But he knelt, spine straight, head bowed not in defeat, but in reverence.
Three days had passed since the final breath of Herios echoed into the wind.
