For a long, suspended moment, no one spoke as the Burrowmaw's massive body lay sprawled and lifeless across the shattered earth, its grotesque form finally still. What had once been a relentless, circling predator was now nothing more than a ruin of flesh and stone-scarred hide, half-buried in the crater it had torn open itself.
Steam hissed violently where Linda's lingering ice met the scorched ground beneath, the sudden clash of extremes giving rise to thick fog that curled and drifted upward like a funeral shroud. The mist clung to the Burrowmaw's corpse, wrapping around its broken frame as though attempting to hide the violence of its end. Lily raised an arm to shield her eyes as the last traces of blinding light faded from her vision, her breath uneven and shallow while she struggled to calm the frantic pounding in her chest.
