Cassie felt every bone in her body break, the sharp splinters piercing her flesh and protruding from the torn skin in a torrent of blood.
A few moments in the past — or rather, in the present — she threw her body to the ground, rolling across the broken runic circle. Then, with a roaring howl, an enormous cannonball impacted the ground hundreds of meters away, pulverizing dozens of Mordret's vessels into bloody mist.
Sending a cloud of shattered obsidian into the air, it bounced forward and flashed through the space where Cassie had stood a second ago before crashing into the wall of the Ebony Tower and disintegrating into a furious conflagration of light, heat, and metal shrapnel.
The shockwave washed over her like a phantom of the Crushing, making Cassie groan.
Throughout all of this, Mordret remained motionless.
