A choked sob, distant but sharp.
Quinlan's face turned grim.
Feng's pout vanished, replaced by wide-eyed worry.
Serika gasped.
The joy of victory dissolved into silence.
And their gazes turned toward the sound.
There, in the shadows cast by still-smoldering debris, lay Rykar.
The man who had once been a towering pillar of dignity was now reduced to a broken, crumpled figure. His once-proud form leaned helplessly over a charred body, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
The heat of Venthros's fury had melted away his prosthetic limbs, leaving only cauterized stumps. The ancient warrior who had once trained Quinlan with cold detachment, demanding perfection without showing an ounce of kindness, now knelt with no limbs to catch himself, his head bowed low in devastation.
He was crying.
Not the silent, stoic grief of a man hardened by pain.
But the raw, soul-shattering weeping of a father.
