Riven didn't move right away. The last shockwave from Valeria's surge of power rolled across the devastated landscape, scattering ash, dust, and fractured stone like the aftermath of a storm that refused to pass completely.
For a fleeting moment, the world hung in a delicate balance between collapse and silence. In that fragile stillness, he stood several paces away, watching her.
The relaxed grin that had lingered on his face through the chaos of slaughter and carnage was gone. Gone was the mocking amusement, the casual cruelty, and the detached curiosity of a man observing an experiment unfold. In its place remained something far more dangerous, solemn focus, sharpened and cold.
What stood before him was no longer just a runaway weapon; it had transformed into something else entirely. Valeria slowly rose from the fractured ground, her posture straightening despite the damage that still ravaged her body.
