Ann woke buried in stone. Not entombed, but sheltered.
The mountain itself had swallowed him at the final moment, carrying him deep beneath the surface through divine tunnels carved instinctively by the Mountain God's bloodline. The earth had parted for him like a mother's embrace, closing behind him to hide his heat and scent from the gaze of the man who could kill gods.
Ann lay still for a long time, chest heaving, lungs burning with the silt-heavy air. He was alive, though the cost of survival felt like a slow death. His divine avatar had been shattered into prismatic shards.
The backlash from Avatar Displacement still ravaged his body, cracking bones that had been harder than granite and tearing through meridians like jagged glass. His essence was a leaking sieve, draining faster than his core could pulse.
If Aegis had pursued for even a second longer, Ann knew the truth: he would have been erased from existence.
Just then, a faint rhythmic glow pulsed nearby.
