The silence that followed the second death was absolute, broken only by the soft dripping of blood onto scorched earth.
Hundreds of eyes stared at the white figure standing in the center of the battlefield, that cruel smile still playing across features that looked like Akhil's but somehow weren't. The resemblance was there—the build, the hair, the face—but everything else was wrong. The posture, the expression, the cold malevolence radiating from every movement.
This wasn't their leader. This wasn't their friend.
This was something else entirely.
"We need to get him back," Aria breathed, her hand instinctively moving toward her blade. Her voice trembled slightly, caught between fear and desperation. "We need to wake him up. There has to be a way to—"
"Don't." Nyla's voice cut through the tension like a knife, sharp and absolute. Her eyes never left the Blood Monarch as she spoke. "Don't even think about approaching that thing."
