Warren's body crashed into the ground with bone-jarring force.
The portal had spat him out, his desperate dive through the gateway translating into an uncontrolled collision with earth that drove air from his lungs and sent fresh waves of agony through his already catastrophic injuries.
He lay there for several seconds, breathing ragged and uneven, his constitution struggling to process the accumulated damage from fighting Jack, combined with whatever had just happened during his portal transit.
Then the pain registered.
Not the dull ache of broken ribs or the sharp burning of electrical damage.
This was something different.
Something felt wrong.
His left leg felt heavy, immobile, the sensation distorted in ways that made his mind struggle to identify the specific injury.
Warren forced himself to look down.
His left leg from mid-calf to foot had been transformed into slag.
