"Buzzz..."
Thomas's ears still echoed with that earth-shattering thunderclap, as though it had shattered the entire world.
The sound had been so immense that, after the brief roar faded, all that remained in his ears was a constant, high-pitched buzzing that drowned out most of the sounds around him. His head felt muddled, as if someone had struck it viciously with a heavy object. Everything before his eyes was blurry and swaying.
Struggling, he slowly and laboriously raised his head.
What he saw was a scene straight out of hell. Bodies lay everywhere around him, writhing in agony or already motionless. Blood, shattered limbs, and scattered weapons covered every inch of ground within sight. The air was thick with an overpowering stench of gunpowder that made him want to vomit, mingled with the rusty smell of fresh blood.
How was he unharmed?
Thomas's muddled mind turned with difficulty. He remembered now—at the very last moment before that thunderous volley, just before that flash of death lit up and that roar of destruction erupted, the instinct to survive had eclipsed everything else.
His legs had gone weak, and he had collapsed clumsily onto the ground, almost going limp. It was precisely that unintentional motion that had let him evade the barrage of death sweeping past at head height.
If he had still been standing then...
Thomas did not dare think further. A wave of lingering fear chilled his entire body. Struggling, he tried to crawl out of this mountain of corpses and sea of blood on all fours, then turn and flee. His movement tugged at a figure lying beside him.
"Ugh... Hah... Hah..."
A pained groan, as though squeezed up from the depths of someone's throat and spattered with blood foam, caught Thomas's attention.
Turning his head, he saw a