After the explosion, the gorge returned to a brief silence.
The next moment, wails intermittently emerged from the depths of the ruins.
"Help... help... uh..."
"My leg... ah ah ah!!"
"Stay away from that black mist! Cough, cough..."
Voices filled with heart-wrenching fear drifted in the thick smoke, echoing in the hollow valley.
The air was filled with the smell of burning, blood, and a stench like a mix of sulfur and rotting flesh.
Some knights' armor was corrosively pitted with blood and flesh sticking to it, and they couldn't even scream, just opened their mouths to spit out foam and blood.
Someone tumbled to the ground, desperately crawling upwards, half of their body charred, half frostbitten, skin peeling off in chunks, revealing bloody muscles and stark white bones underneath.
A war wolf had half its body blown apart, intestines dragging in the snow, yet it still twitched unconsciously, paws scrabbling, as if still searching for its already charred master.
