The cut happened—and with it, everything ceased.
There was no explosion, no dramatic dissipation of energy, no spectacle marking the end of an existence that had spanned ages. On the contrary. What came after was… silence. A strange, profound, almost unnatural silence, as if the temple itself had been forced to acknowledge something not foreseen in its structure.
The constant pressure that filled the atmosphere—that invisible vigilance, that weight that observed every particle—simply… diminished.
It didn't disappear completely.
But it weakened.
And that, in itself, was wrong.
Freyja's body remained there for a brief instant, motionless, sustained only by the inertia of the moment that had just occurred. Her eyes, once alive with decisiveness and clarity, were now empty, unfocused, without presence. There was no pain in her expression. No tension. Only… absence.
And then—
She fell.
