The heat itself wasn’t all that impressive, especially in the freezing weather, but the force behind the explosion was another matter entirely. The shockwave caught Elias’s massive body and launched him high into the sky despite his attempt to brace himself.

He landed atop the frozen lake.

The ancient ice couldn’t withstand the impact. It shattered beneath his enormous body, breaking apart despite having remained frozen for an unknown number of centuries. Elias plunged through the broken surface and fell deep into the natural oasis hidden beneath the frozen lake.

Andrea’s reaction was much quicker.

Just as the explosion was about to begin, she grabbed Claire without hesitation, completely disregarding the difference between their physical bodies. She launched Claire away from the center of the explosion with all the strength she could muster, but the force behind the throw was so great that Claire’s shoulder broke in the process.

The explosion then caught Claire and pushed her even farther away, leaving her battered and injured as she was thrown across the battlefield. Despite everything, she was still alive.

Andrea, however, remained at the center of the explosion together with the Chief. The blast was deafening, and Andrea’s white armor lit up as the runes covering its surface began to shatter one after another. She could feel the force of the explosion tearing against her body as she struggled to remain standing, her armor taking the brunt of the destruction around her.

Yuri looked away from Elias and tried to see what was happening, but the thick cloud of snow had completely swallowed the battlefield. There was nothing she could make out through it, not even the silhouettes of the people caught inside the explosion. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, everything died down.

The silence that followed felt almost unnatural.

As the snow slowly settled once again, Yuri was finally able to see what remained of the battlefield. Her eyes immediately fell on the body of the Chief, or at least what remained of it. He wasn’t actually dead. His arms were still moving weakly against the ground, and low groans escaped from him as he struggled to move.

Everything below his waist was gone.

Andrea was lying a short distance away. Her white armor was covered in cracks, some of the damage running across the chest and shoulders, but surprisingly, it had held together. Blood covered half of her face, making it difficult to tell how badly she had been injured, but she was still moving.

The Eidolon army was more or less destroyed. Only a couple hundred stragglers remained outside the now-destroyed wooden wall, staring blankly at the devastation that had replaced their camp. The creatures didn’t seem to know what to do anymore. Their army had been shattered, their camp destroyed, and their Chief was barely alive.

"Do you see?"

The Chief finally began to speak, rousing Andrea from her thoughts.

His voice was weak, but there was still something strangely focused about the way he spoke. He wasn’t actually talking to her. His remaining body moved slightly as he stared into the ruined battlefield, as though he were trying to understand what had just happened.

Andrea noticed that his other eye was gone as well, destroyed by a stray ice spike during the explosion. Perhaps he was asking himself the question, she thought. For that reason, she maintained her silence.

"So this is our reward..." the Chief muttered. "For centuries, we lived at the very bottom, hiding and eating the scraps of others. But we changed that. I changed that. We fought all of them and won. We are... I am the ruler chosen."

His voice became quieter as his gaze wandered across the destruction surrounding him.

"So why then have I been reduced to this by creatures none have heard of?"

The Chief suddenly turned his head and stared directly at Andrea. She simply stared back at him, saying nothing.

"I must admit, your kind knows destruction more than mine."

The moment he said that, the Chief suddenly began to roar uncontrollably. There was nothing restrained about the sound anymore. He was giving it everything he had left, driven by the belief that there was nothing left for him to lose. His body was already ruined, his army had been reduced to a few hundred stragglers.

If he was going to fall, then he would drag Andrea down with him.

The remaining Eidolons immediately reacted to his roar. Their eyes turned blood red as they suddenly began charging back into the camp, abandoning whatever fear had driven them away moments earlier. They moved like insane puppets, their bodies driven entirely by bloodlust as they rushed toward Andrea.

Andrea sighed and lifted her blade. But the moment she did, the weapon began to crack.

The damage from the explosion had finally taken its toll. Cracks spread across the surface of the blade before it broke apart completely, the shattered pieces falling from her hand and landing in the snow.

Just as she thought that was the end for her, a loud screeching sound suddenly penetrated from deep underground.

The sound was soul-crushing. Every living creature within the vicinity grimaced in pain as the horrifying screech passed through them, seeming to reach far deeper than their ears. The remaining Eidolons stumbled and covered their heads, while even Andrea struggled against the unbearable sound.

Then the already fragile ice beneath them began to break.

Instead of shattering outward, the frozen surface collapsed inward, pieces of ancient ice sliding toward the center as though something beneath it was pulling everything down. The ground continued sinking until, at the very center, a massive bulge began rising beneath the broken ice.

It looked as though some otherworldly creature was forcing its way toward the surface.

"Screeeeeeeeech!"

The sound erupted again, even louder than before.

Without warning, a massive white beak shot out from the ground. It opened wide before snapping down on the deformed Chief, its enormous jaws clamping around his body.

The Chief’s roar immediately changed.

What had once been an angry battle cry became a roar of pure pain as the massive beak dragged him upwards.

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