[Charrock Plateau]
The jagged stone plain of Charrock Plateau lay under an unsettling silence. A thin wind drifted across the scorched land, dragging faint trails of smoke behind it as though the earth itself were exhaling.
Thud. Thud.
At first, the tremor was subtle, faint but with each passing second, it grew stronger, heavier, more deliberate.
The ground began to quake in earnest. Pebbles skipped across the surface. Loose debris rattled.
From the distant haze, a colossal figure slowly materialized.
At a glance, it seemed to move sluggishly, its massive frame lumbering across the plateau. But a closer look revealed a terrifying truth.
Its pace was anything but slow.
Its strides were enormous, and each step left behind a deep crater in the hardened stone.
Beneath a towering mountain at the plateau's edge, a ruined town sprawled like a carcass picked clean.
Among these ruins, awakeners concealed themselves, their eyes fixed on the approaching figure.
