The ground ruptured with a guttural crack, the frozen crust splitting apart like fractured gss. Pilrs of molten rock surged upward, the sudden burst of heat causing the surrounding ice to sublimate into a thin veil of vapor that dispersed into the vacuum. The Earth itself convulsed as something immense climbed from its core — a colossal figure shaped from stone, magma, and decaying flora.

  Her form twisted and reshaped itself endlessly. Cracks split across her body, magma bleeding through the seams before hardening into jagged armor. Vines slithered across her limbs, sprouting wilted flowers that bckened and crumbled as soon as they bloomed. Frozen moss clung to her, burning away when it touched her molten veins, only to regrow in a relentless cycle of death and rebirth. Her hair was an ever-shifting canopy of dead branches and flickering embers, twigs snapping and regrowing as her rage fred.

  Her face, if it could be called that, was a mask of shifting rock and fire — two bzing chasms where eyes should be, flickering with molten hatred. She exhaled no breath. There was no air to carry it. Only the silent roar of her molten core, bleeding light into a world swallowed by darkness.

  William stood below her, a bckened silhouette against the dim glow of Earth’s fractured surface. His breath didn’t fog. There was no atmosphere left to carry it. The blessing of immotion crackled across his skin, its warmth the only thing keeping him alive in the absolute zero temperatures. But he couldn’t stop the hallucinations flickering at the edges of his vision — shadows of the past, fragmented and bleeding into the present. People he’d lost. People he’d burned.

  The colossal figure slowly bent down, her burning eyes locking onto him like twin suns.

  "You," she rumbled, her voice vibrating through the ground in seismic waves. The absence of air should have made sound impossible, yet her voice resonated through the earth itself. "You killed the sun."

  William blinked, tilting his head. His voice came out rough and rasping, though the vacuum stole most of the sound. "I don’t think I did that."

  Auracea — though he didn’t know her name yet — smmed her hand into the ground, the impact splintering the surface like brittle ice. The shockwave sent William hurtling across the wastend, his body skidding through jagged shards of frozen earth. He hit a fractured gcier and stopped, lying motionless as fmes licked across his skin, the blessing already repairing his torn flesh.

  She loomed over him, molten blood dripping onto the frozen ground, instantly turning it to vapor. "You destroyed everything," she growled. "I felt it happen. Felt the sun vanish. The cold devour my forests. My oceans turn to gss. My mountains crack and die." She lifted her hand, fingers curling like the cws of a predator. "I felt you."

  William sat up, brushing ash from his burned clothes. "I don’t remember doing that," he muttered.

  Auracea screamed.

  She thrust her arms into the Earth, and the pnet obeyed her fury. The ndscape writhed and shifted — jagged spires of obsidian bursting upward like the bones of a forgotten god. Massive chunks of terrain ripped themselves free, orbiting her like deranged moons, their rotation accelerating until they blurred into a ring of death.

  One of the massive ndmasses came hurtling toward William like a meteor.

  He didn’t try to run.

  The second it touched him, his body erupted in fmes, the stone disintegrating into molten sg. The impact crater spread out in a burning halo, but William remained untouched, the fire of his blessing roaring around him like a living creature.

  Auracea didn’t care.

  She hurled another.

  And another.

  And another.

  William burned through all of them, body charred and mending in an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. He never raised his hands to defend himself. He never shouted back. He simply endured.

  Zephar, perched zily on a floating chunk of debris, tilted his head and smirked. He didn’t interfere. Why would he? The scene was far too entertaining.

  Auracea, panting, her massive body shedding chunks of molten flesh, finally stopped. She loomed over William, shadows stretching across the frozen ruins.

  "I hate you," she whispered.

  William, lying in the crater of her wrath, stared up at her through the haze of smoke and embers. "I know," he rasped.

  Auracea trembled, her molten core flickering. For a brief moment, the world stood still.

  Then she grabbed him.

  Her massive hand engulfed his entire body, fingers snapping shut like the jaws of a beast. She lifted him into the air, her molten grip melting into his flesh, but his blessing surged in response — fmes exploding outward, burning through her stone skin and searing her inner magma.

  Auracea shrieked and hurled William across the ndscape with all her strength. He arced through the frozen void, crashing into the side of a dormant volcano that cracked and rumbled as he struck it.

  She followed.

  Climbing the volcano with terrifying speed, her body swelled, stone reshaping itself to form jagged cws and spiked limbs. The volcano itself responded to her fury — the crater trembling, smoke rising from fissures as the Earth struggled to awaken.

  William pulled himself to his feet, watching her approach. His hands shook, not from pain, but from the weight of everything he couldn’t feel.

  "You let the Earth die," she roared, climbing higher. "You let my children wither. The forests. The rivers. The creatures. You abandoned them."

  William watched her climb. "I abandoned a lot of things," he said quietly.

  Auracea reached the summit and lunged.

  They fought on the edge of the crater, her stone fists crashing into him with the weight of continents. Every blow split the dead silence, sending tremors rippling through the void. The volcano stirred beneath their battle, tremors shaking loose rivers of molten rock that crawled down the frozen slopes.

  As they fought, William looked past her shoulder — past the shattered horizon.

  Something burned in the distance.

  Six points of light, growing brighter as they streaked through the sky, leaving trails of molten gold against the bckness of space. They fell like judgment, smming into the Earth one after the other, each impact visible even from a hundred miles away.

  Auracea staggered, clutching her chest, her molten core flickering violently. She screamed — a wretched, agonized sound that resonated through the dead earth.

  William, charred and bleeding, turned to see Zephar standing between them, brushing ash from his coat.

  Zephar cpped his hands together. "Now that you two have got that off your chests," he said, his voice carrying effortlessly despite the absence of air, "can I tell you about the third roll and the warring race that just moved in next door? This is slightly important to the survival of you and this world. No pressure."

  William coughed smoke and wiped molten blood from his eyes. "Third roll?" he rasped.

  Zephar grinned. "Yes, an event known as the Multiverse Highnder. The Ashborn are just a small fraction of the shit storm you two are in for. Also, because humans send out broadcasts for anyone to hear constantly, they’re very curious about their new neighbors, but more in a Dark Forest Theory way, if you catch my drift."

  Auracea, still clutching her chest, let out a low, broken sob. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”

  “Probably, but quit crying and listen.”