Chapter 53: Invasion
"This blows..." Belk growled, his voice low and ragged, as he crouched in the dirt, fingers clawing through his hair like he was trying to tear the thoughts from his skull.
His hooded gaze fixed on the devastation ahead, unblinking, as if the sheer weight of the scene had pinned him in place.
The world around him was a wasteland—charred timbers, shattered glass, and the skeletal remains of the ironmill jutting out like broken bones.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of smoke and ash, and the faint crackle of dying flames still whispered from the rooftops, their orange tongues licking at the sky in a cruel, mocking dance.
His mind clawed back to the attackers, their faces etched into his memory like scars. His hands, trembling at first, clenched into fists so tight his knuckles turned white, nails biting into the soil beneath him.
The dirt crumbled under his grip, as if the earth itself could feel his rage. "What now?" Vagnis’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and uneasy. He stood with his arms crossed, his usual bravado replaced by a furrowed brow and a tight jaw.
His eyes darted across the ruins, lingering on the jagged shards of glass scattered like fallen stars.
"They took everything... Even the glass..." His gaze shifted to the village, where the flames still flickered stubbornly, their light casting long, wavering shadows over the wreckage. The smoke curled upward in thick, black tendrils, a grim reminder of the enemy’s taunt. It was as if the fire itself was alive, laughing at them.
"Start over..." The scientist’s voice was barely a whisper, hollow and defeated. He stared at his hands, now caked in grime and soot, as if they belonged to someone else. "From the very beginning..."