Lady Morgana heard the first boom and only then saw the splatter of blood and mist where three of her Warriors had been standing moments before.
Her serpentine pupils contracted with shock as she watched the continued devastation unfold, Flesh Awakening Warriors and Bone Tempering Warriors alike being erased from existence as if they were absolutely nothing, as if the years they had spent cultivating and the power they had accumulated meant less than dust before whatever force was descending upon them!
With her Land and Sky Physique, the Serpent’s Gaze that allowed her to perceive movement and track targets across distances that normal eyes couldn’t fathom, she was barely able to follow the terrifying things that were thundering down from the direction of the mountain. They looked like massive trunks of trees wreathed in brilliant light, blue Mana crackling around them like lightning given physical form, but the force they carried was something that even for her would be too much to bear.
She had seen siege weapons wielded by the armies of Anointed Ones.
She had witnessed them unleash techniques that shattered formations of enemy Warriors.
This was worse!
This was like the wrath of the Ancestors themselves given physical form and hurled at mortals who had dared to exist in the wrong place at the wrong time!
She finally realized what had killed the Butcher and Lukaku.
Not treachery from within.
Not a lucky strike from desperate Dross.
This.
Whatever this was.
The moment she continued to feel and see more of these thundering blue bolts smashing into the lands and killing her forces as if they were mere ants beneath a falling stone, her mind made the calculation that had kept her alive through years of serving other’s interests in dangerous territories.
Her figure instantly turned around without a word.
And she began to run.
She ran with all the power her body could give, every ounce of Mana she possessed flooding into her legs and propelling her forward with speed that would have left any Flesh Awakening Warrior far behind. She knew the Lands of Stone were terrifying and that they held an overabundance of mysteries that could kill the unwary, and she had clearly stumbled into one of those mysteries right now.
Something far more powerful than she had anticipated.
Something that could obliterate Bone Tempering Warriors with thrown logs from miles away!
The natural thought process for someone like her, someone who had survived this long by knowing when to fight and when to flee, was to admit her wrongdoing in coming here and begin running for survival right away.
She didn’t even bother to contact her forces or tell them what to do.
She didn’t pause to organize a retreat or designate someone to cover her escape.
Because seeing the power that was crashing down all around her, hearing the booms and the wet sounds of bodies being destroyed, she knew with absolute certainty that this had to be someone far above Bone Tempering.
Her own life was not guaranteed.
So she ran like mad, tendrils of Mana coursing over her legs as she moved like a rabbit fleeing from a hawk’s shadow, her serpentine eyes fixed forward on the terrain ahead while her enhanced perception tracked the continuing destruction behind her.
Every boom was another death.
Every flash of blue light was another Warrior she had recruited or controlled being reduced to nothing.
She didn’t look back.
She just ran!
---
On that slope of the mountain, Damian had been throwing one trunk after another with mechanical precision, each release of his arm sending another bolt of Mana-hardened wood screaming across the miles to find its targets.
It was rapidly depleting the dozens of forces that belonged to the woman he assumed was Lady Morgana of the Iron Serpent Tribe, the information extracted from Lukaku the night before proving accurate as his enhanced perception tracked Mana signatures winking out one after another.
Uncle Adam had stopped cutting branches some time ago, standing instead at the edge of the clearing with an expression of awe.
But Damian didn’t notice.
His attention was focused entirely on the slaughter below.
And just as he threw the last log toward a terrified group of Warriors who had frozen and rooted themselves to the ground like prey animals hoping that stillness would save them from a predator’s notice, he felt and saw something that made his eyes flash with cold fury.
Lady Morgana had begun to run away.
Her Mana signature was moving rapidly in the opposite direction, fleeing from the zone of destruction with a speed that spoke of desperation and survival instinct overriding everything else.
And his eyes grew sharp with recognition of what that meant.
That was something that could not be allowed.
He was taught many things when he was growing up in the Vakochev Empire, lessons delivered in training halls and private chambers and during long walks through gardens that no longer existed. His mother had focused on honor and compassion and the responsibilities that came with power.
His father had the more rough conversations.
Ensi Vakochev, Lord of the Crown of Dawn and ruler of an empire that spanned seven sacred mountains, had been a hard man who understood the realities of the Lands of Stone in ways that his gentle wife sometimes struggled to accept.
He had sat Damian down on multiple occasions and explained what one needed to do to survive in a world where mercy was often repaid with betrayal.
One of those conversations had been about killing.
"Killing is a sacred thing, my son."
His father’s voice echoed through memory, deep and resonant and utterly certain of the truths he was imparting.
"Each time you take a life, you must understand what you are doing. You are permanently dimming the light of another existence, ending a story that will never be told, silencing a voice that will never speak again. It is not something to take lightly, not something to do carelessly or cruelly or without purpose."
His father had leaned forward, his eyes holding Damian’s with an intensity that demanded attention.
"But when you do kill, when you have made the choice that killing is necessary, you must do so for a reason. And you must be thorough."
The memory sharpened.
"If you have enemies and you have already begun killing them, you must make absolutely certain to finish killing every single one of those enemies. You do not leave survivors. You do not show mercy to those who would not show mercy to you. You do not allow even one to escape and carry tales of what happened back to others who might seek revenge."
His father’s hand had gripped his shoulder.
"Because if even one is left alive, if even one escapes to nurse their wounds and their hatred in some distant place, it is guaranteed that sooner or later they will come back. They will come back stronger, or they will come back with allies, or they will come back when you are weak and unprepared. And then it will be your blood and your corpse that litters the Lands of Stone."
The grip tightened.
"So when you begin something, you finish it. When you start killing, you keep killing until there is no one left to kill. This is not cruelty, my son. This is survival. This is the only way to ensure that your enemies cannot become threats again."
...!