The world shuddered.
A deep, ancient rumble echoed from the bowels of the earth as Khepri exhaled, his eyes narrowing.
Enough.
A surge of brownish mana erupted from his core, engulfing his body like a second skin — thick, heavy, primordial.
The mere pressure of it bent the light around him, warping the battlefield in wild, nauseating waves.
The shattered ground groaned louder, the fractures in the earth splitting wider, and for a moment — a heartbeat — seemed to still.
Then, with a deep, cracking roar—
The earth answered his call.
Chunks of stone the size of towers wrenched free from the ground, ripping upward into the sky as if gravity itself had been reversed.
They didn't simply float aimlessly; no, they moved with purpose, accelerating toward Alex from all directions like the fists of an angry god.
Alex darted backward, his golden form blurring through the chaos, narrowly avoiding a monolithic slab that crashed down behind him, splintering into a hailstorm of shrapnel.
