The echoes of their clash with Tao's elite forces had faded, leaving only the grim tableau of the aftermath. Ning Que stood at its epicenter, his chest heaving, his eyes scanning the carnage.
His team was scattered around him, nursing wounds and gasping for breath. The ground was a graveyard of broken bodies and discarded weapons, a testament to the price of their survival.
But Ning's mind wasn't on the battlefield. It was lost in the clearing, replaying the moment the man had appeared—the man who called himself a "preview." The phantom weight of his condescending gaze pressed down on him. "You're nothing."
The words had been a precision strike, not against his body, but against the very foundation of his existence. He had felt something deep inside him tremble with a primal fear, a dread that the very fabric of his reality was unraveling.
