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"No...!"
A heavy mist of darkness oozed from Cheska, coiling around her like smoke.
"I shouldn't have let it take over…"
She knelt on the scorched ground, her hands trembling, fingers digging into the cracked earth. All around her, flames raged— twisting pillars of fire consuming the trees and the fallen bodies of knights and mages alike.
Their armor gleamed weakly under the flickering firelight, lifeless and broken.
Above her, a massive black snake, its scales glistening like obsidian, hovered protectively. Its body was as thick as the towering sequoia trees that now burned and splintered, and its violet slit-pupil eyes bore into the chaos, hissing softly.
The creature's form rippled through the dense smoke, moving like an extension of Cheska's own dark aura.
Her chest heaved as tears mingled with the soot on her face. The swirling darkness around her felt heavy— alive —and it pulsed with a cruel heartbeat.
