The silence was almost oppressive.
Where once a river of blood rose, seething like a living entity, only a desolate expanse of dry, cracked, and barren earth remained. The deep red that had once painted every surface had now vanished, as if swallowed by the darkness itself. The air was heavy, still, and exuded a sweet, metallic smell—there was no wind, no life, only the distant echo of something that had been consumed to the last drop.
In the center of that devastated expanse, Raphaeline stood as the only piece of color and movement.
Her skin, ethereally pale, glowed softly in the dim light, as if the stolen essence still flowed beneath her. Her hair, long and pitch-black, was more alive, shinier, with strands that seemed to move on their own, as if responding to the flow of newly embodied power. Her eyes, once intense, now burned a brilliant red, so deep they seemed to contain fragments of that extinct river of blood.
