The rocks groaned where they pinned her.
Vinea lay half-buried under a collapsed ledge of blackened stone, the breath forced from her lungs with every heartbeat. Her sword lay nearby—snapped midway down the blade, its molten core flickering faintly like a dying ember.
Snow, once white, now steamed against the shards of fire leaking from her broken horns.
Above her, the ground trembled.
A booming laugh, childlike and full of excitement, rolled across the battlefield.
"C'mon!" Gorrhan shouted, hopping from foot to foot like an oversized child begging for another round of a game.
"Don't stop now! You're close—I can feel it!"
The massive demon lumbered closer, his stone arms crackling with barely contained seismic energy. His back, ridged with jagged spines, hummed in rhythm with each booming step.
"You're strong!" he said brightly. "Stronger than the little cracks you're making!"
