Across the field, standing with the scorched remains of her fallen cultists surrounding her, the cult leader did not move.
Her eyes swept to the wall that now had a hole from the two cultists that had just been blown into oblivion. Smoke still curled from the earth like ghostly fingers reaching for salvation. The aether residue in the air pulsed and hissed.
She stared at the spot for several long moments, and then-
She laughed.
Not loudly. Not in triumph. But bitterly, as if mocking the very ones who had sacrificed themselves.
"Fools," she hissed, voice cracked and venom-laced, "They were so desperate to be vessels to attack Eldoria due to what your kingdom did to them… and yet… they became nothing more than kindling."
But there was something behind her voice-something not quite as steady. A faint tremble, a sliver of realisation as if she now knew that this was going to be her last fight.
She looked up.
And for the first time, the weight of her position struck her.
