The roar of the Troll King faded into the rain.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield held its breath. Steam curled upward from the corpse of the fallen giant as its enormous body slumped deeper into the shattered entrance of Paragon Mall. Broken marble shifted beneath its weight while rainwater washed thick black blood down the cratered steps and into the ruined street. The enormous carcass looked almost peaceful now, an impossible contrast to the chaos it had unleashed moments earlier.
Then the silence was shattered.
Cheers erupted.
It began with a single Bastion hunter, a young man with a fresh scar slashed across his left eye. He threw his head back and shouted into the rain, the sound bursting from his chest like something that had been trapped there for hours. It was a raw cry of survival, the kind that came only after someone realized they were still alive.
Another voice joined him.
Then another.
