The world returned not with a sound, but with a profound, aching silence.
The incandescent white that had consumed reality bled away, leaving behind a sky bruised a sickly, wounded purple. The air was thin, carrying the stench of ozone and vaporized stone. Where a vast army and a scarred battlefield had stood moments before, there was now only a miles-wide crater of smooth, black, glassy rock, still glowing with a faint, residual heat.
In the center of this new desolation, Alaric Steele pushed himself to his feet, his body a symphony of agony. He swayed, his vision a swimming vortex of black spots. He coughed, and a thick glob of blood splattered onto the glassy ground, a stark crimson against the black.
