Cassius's eyes dulled, the shimmer of consciousness fading from them like a dying ember. His breath grew shallow, ragged, then slowed into stillness.
And then, he collapsed.
The backlash of his relentless overuse of abilities had finally claimed him.
He was unconscious.
Freya, who had been leaning against his chest, suddenly felt the shift in his body—
the tension vanishing, the strength gone.
She blinked rapidly and pulled herself up, hands trembling, knees barely able to support her as she sat upright.
Her entire body shook, not from cold, but from the emotional weight pressing down on her.
Her mind was chaos—complete, fractured, tortured chaos.
Flashes of the Basilisk came crashing back to her in relentless waves.
Its monstrous head high above the clouds, casting a colossal shadow over the mountain.
Its cold, golden slit eyes—eyes that had locked with hers, if only for a moment.
But that moment had felt like an eternity.
