The Maxton Mansion's grand living room — once a cathedral of marble, crystal chandeliers, and old-money arrogance — was now a tomb of ruin.
Four days after Phei's rage had torn through it like the wrath of an angry god, the space remained exactly as he had left it: walls cracked in fractal patterns of black ice that refused to melt, floors cratered where bodies had been slammed, furniture reduced to splinters and dust.
Shattered glass still glittered like fallen stars across the marble.
The air itself still tasted of ozone and void-frost, cold enough to make breath plume even in the middle of summer.
Yet tonight the wreckage had been repurposed.
A ritual circle had been erected in the exact centre of the devastation, as though the family had decided to worship at the site of their own desecration.
Twelve hooded figures stood in a perfect ring around the altar.
Each wore heavy black robes stitched with silver thread that caught no light, faces hidden beneath deep cowls.
