The Dowager had seen Pandora twisted by corruption.
She had watched kingdoms rise and fall.
She had stood at the edge of oblivion more times than she could count.
But as she watched the two boys move through the tide of abominations, she felt a rare and unsettling truth settle into her chest.
She had no frame of reference for this.
For a long moment she simply stared, her breath caught somewhere between disbelief and awe.
'Am I sensing this wrong?'
The thought pressed in, sharp and insistent. But her senses had never failed her, not once in all her years.
These creatures were Rank 9. Monsters that could tear apart armies if left unchecked.
And yet they were collapsing around those boys like brittle leaves in a storm.
Her gaze fixed first on the red-haired one.
A corrupt beast lunged at him, tendrils snapping forward.
The Dowager blinked.
It was as if a slice of reality had been cut and moved.
One heartbeat the monster was mid-lunge.
