If the demon side of the corridor was a roaring inferno of triumph, the Aethelgard side was a frozen tomb.
The contrast was not merely stark; it was apocalyptic. Where the Underlayer screamed with the birth of a new era, the defenders of Aethelgard stood in the death throes of an old one.
Pale, hollow faces stared out from the ranks of soldiers who had just laid down their weapons, but there was no relief in their surrender, only a profound, soul-crushing emptiness.
Some soldiers simply collapsed, their knees hitting the blood-slicked stone with wet THUDS, their bodies convulsing in uncontrollable tremors.
Others stood like statues carved from grief, their eyes gone glassy and vacant. They weren't just defeated; they were spiritually eviscerated.
The power they had placed their absolute faith in—the divine certainty of their Apostle, their hero, their living god—had been snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
