On the opposite side of the crater, the monster was barely standing.
Its sleek, muscle-bound body was hunched forward, one knee pressed into the dirt while thick streams of black blood poured freely from the massive burns the chains had left across its chest and arms.
The dark purple aura that had been suffocating the air for the past twenty minutes was almost completely gone now, reduced to a faint, sputtering glow that flickered like a dying candle around its shoulders.
Its split visor was cracked down the center, the jagged smile nowhere to be seen.
Up on the ridge, the demon girl slowly exhaled through her teeth as she took in the full picture below.
Both of them looked like they were about to collapse. The massive explosion from their final clash had blown a fresh crater into the already destroyed ruins, the surrounding ground scorched black from the violent collision of holy and corrupted mana.
