Smoke clung to the arena like a living thing—thick, heavy, and unwilling to let go.
It curled low to the ground, coiling in lazy, reluctant spirals that refused to disperse. The mist hung in the silence like the breath of a sleeping beast, as if the battlefield itself was holding on to the memory of violence, unwilling to release it.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Only the faint hum of dying magic remained—a dull echo in the ears of everyone present. The dark energy was beginning to thin, retreating like a defeated tide, unveiling the wreckage left behind.
Then—movement.
A shape stirred.
It rose slowly, unsteadily, like a corpse remembering how to stand.
A silhouette emerged from the smoke. Tall. Twisted. Broken.
But unmistakably standing.
As the haze peeled away like torn curtains, the figure at the center became agonizingly clear.
Varkos.
Still alive.
Still present.
Still a nightmare made flesh.
His form was scorched.
