Alex stood still.
The head of the Earth Clan's patriarch—Khepri—hung loosely in his grasp, the lifeless expression still etched with disbelief, as if the man couldn't comprehend the ending of his own story. Blood dripped silently from the severed neck, staining the wreckage below, falling onto burned soil that would never grow life again.
Alex didn't move, not because he didn't want to—but because he couldn't.
His body, having carried him through the impossible, had finally reached its limit. The moment the fight ended, something inside him snapped shut. Muscles locked. Joints stiffened. His blood still ran, but barely. His heart still beat, but sluggishly. Even Nova had to go quiet, likely rerouting all internal energy toward emergency recovery.
The weight of what he'd done, what he had survived, still hadn't hit him.
It would later.
But now… now, his eyes drifted.
And there, making her way through the cracked terrain, stepping with uncharacteristic care, was Nyxara.
