The scorched crater where a Spirit Ascension powerhouse and his titanic avatar had stood just moments before was still hissing with radiant, fading heat.
Sand and shattered basalt had melted into smooth, glassy obsidian under the violent passage of the plasma sphere, giving off thin ribbons of pale, sulfurous smoke that drifted through the fractured canopy.
The heavy silence that followed the annihilation was suffocating, broken only by the distant drip of moisture from severed pine branches.
Yan Xiao followed closely after Xia Mengyao, vaulting through the splintered perimeter of fallen iron-bark trees.
His breath hitched as his boots skidded along the edge of the glassy trench, his eyes darting frantically across the empty clearing in search of the colossal Spirit Avatar he had seen from afar.
There was nothing. Only a terrifying, smooth hollow in the earth that reeked of primordial heat.
And then, his gaze landed upon the girl standing at the center of the devastation.
