The world held its breath.
K
The dust settled, revealing a tableau of impossible, beautiful, and deeply, profoundly inconvenient tension.
Sayama Kotetsu, the Sword King of Suzu, lay broken at my feet.
His katana was a dozen yards away, half-buried in the blood-soaked earth.
His chest was a crater of shattered ribs and righteous fury.
He was defeated.
But he was not broken.
He looked up at me, a slow, bloody smile on his lips, his eyes burning with a strange, triumphant fire.
"Is it?" he rasped, the words a dry, reedy sound that sent a shiver of genuine, cold fear down my spine.
And then, I felt it.
A new, terrible energy in the air.
A power I had not felt before.
I looked up at the walls of Suzu.
At the thousands of soldiers.
Their eyes were not filled with despair.
They were filled with a strange, fanatical light.
They were all looking at him. At their fallen king.
A low, rumbling sound began to echo from the city.
It was a chant.
