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Zeke knelt on the black glass, one hand resting on the pommel of a sword planted upright before him. The blade had pierced the fused surface and sunk deep. He leaned on it—not for support, but because the posture suited the moment.
The white floor of the Crucible was gone. In its place stretched a wasteland of black glass and shallow craters, the surface cracked like dried mud over a fire that had burned too long and too hot. Demon corpses lay twisted among the human dead—charred limbs intertwined, indistinguishable at first glance. Monster carcasses the size of dwellings had fallen in heaps, their blood pooling in the depressions their bodies had carved.
At the center of it all, Zeke knelt. His head was bowed. His hands rested on the pommel. The blood on him was not his own.
He did not move. The battlefield settled around him, exhausted into silence.
"Ahh." He let out a low moan, almost content. "I missed this."
His weathered face held a satisfied smile.
