The silence in the courtyard shattered.It wasn't a sound of thunder or a battle cry, but a horrific, low-frequency hum that vibrated directly through the stone underfoot and inside the teeth of every man still standing. Chris looked down at his empty hands, then back up at Malakai. The betrayal didn't just break his heart; it scorched away the last remnants of the boy who had spent his mornings worrying about potato harvests. Every bedtime story, every comforting look from Marcell, every year spent hiding in the dirt—it all transformed into a blinding, suffocating fury."You lie," Chris whispered.But his own voice sounded foreign to him, amplified by an unnatural resonance that stripped the air right out of the courtyard."The truth is a bitter draught, Lord Astana," Malakai said, stepping forward, his black eyes fixed on the young king. "But the sooner you swallow it, the sooner we can—""I said," Chris roared, his eyes flashing a stark, absolute white that instantly burned away the shadows, "shut your fucking mouth!"He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't need one. Chris threw his hands outward, and the freezing reservoir of the negation of magic beneath his ribs didn't just open—it ruptured.A localized shockwave of pure, unadulterated void exploded from his chest. The shimmering distortion that had merely protected his body expanded violently into a massive dome of negative energy, expanding across the courtyard in a fraction of a second. The moment the wave hit Malakai's creeping frost, the ice didn't melt; it ceased to exist. The stone floor blocks disintegrated into fine, molecular dust.Malakai's eyes widened in genuine, panicked shock. He raised his gnarled staff, channeling the dark, immortal energy of the Ashen Realm to create a defensive barrier, but Chris's magic was a universal solvent. The void tore through Malakai's barrier like paper.When the wave struck the traveler, the illusion of his pale, human flesh was violently ripped away. A terrible, multi-toned scream tore from his throat as the hollow, swallowing blackness of his true form was exposed to the light. The gnarled wooden staff in his hand cracked, turning grey, and shattered into a cloud of dead ash that was instantly swallowed by Chris's void."This isn't over, Astana!" Malakai's voice fractured into a chorus of dying echoes as the kinetic force of the blast tore his corporeal form apart, blasting his remaining essence backward through the shattered archway and sending him hurtling over the edge of the plateau into the dark mountain pass below.The explosion subsided, leaving the lower gates in a state of absolute ruin. A perfect, smooth crater twenty feet deep had been carved into the solid rock of the courtyard where Chris stood. Chris fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air, his chest heaving as the white light slowly faded from his eyes, leaving them bloodshot and hollow.General Duwall was the first to break the catatonic silence, stumbling backward away from the lip of the crater, looking down at his king not with respect, but with absolute, unmitigated terror.