Burnt District – Outer Sector, Just Before Dera's Shot, A Year Ago
The road ahead was dust and ruin.
Cracked concrete. Blasted buildings. Lampposts bent in half like snapped twigs. The stench of ozone and blood clung to everything.
Dera gunned the bike forward, her red jacket billowing behind her like a flare in the smoke. Magic flickered along the ruined skyline—bursts of violet light, infernal flame, and screams carried on the wind. It wasn't chaos.
It was the aftermath of it.
Ahead, a swarm of nightcrawlers twitched through the rubble—eyeless, sinewy beasts with vertical jaws and skeletal arms too long for their bodies. The one in front sniffed the air, twitched toward her, and hissed.
CRACK.
Its head burst in a spray of black pulp. The others screeched and charged. She didn't hesitate—dropped another with her sidearm, swerved between two collapsed cars, and lobbed a rune grenade over her shoulder.
Ping.
BOOM.
