As far as the eye could see, no mountains rose or fell.
No rivers wound their way onward, nor was there the slightest trace of life.
There was only an endless black plain, reeking of scorched ash and blood.
The earth was charred black, its surface crisscrossed with enormous fissures.
The wind swept up black dust, letting out a low moan like a sob.
Corpses everywhere? Under such utter destruction,
even corpses had become a luxury.
More had been instantly vaporized by the extreme heat and shockwaves, or blasted apart by violent energy until not even ashes remained.
Only a very few remnants lay scattered across the Scorched Earth like broken dolls carelessly discarded.
Even the fierce vultures and hyenas of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, beasts that specialized in feeding on carrion, did not dare approach this land cursed by death.
Of course, amid such a catastrophic calamity, there were not no lucky survivors at all.
A ragged old man, half his face burned beyond recognition, struggled out from a pile of corpses.
He stared blankly at the utterly unfamiliar blackened world before him, like a hellish painting unfurled.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Only scalding tears mixed with the blood, grime, and black ash on his face as they ran down.
Not far away, a demon beast struggled to rise, only to fall again and again, crying out in agony.
Its kin, its home, had all vanished into nothingness.
Farther away, survivors from several different tribes—humans and demons alike—were gathered together.
They supported one another and huddled beneath the shadow of a relatively intact boulder.
Just moments ago, they had still been mortal enemies on the battlefield, fighting until death.
But now, all hatred and all positions had become pale and laughable amid this