At the site where the North Star Transfer Station had once stood, less than a minute after the Solar Ship departed, a dim crimson streak descended from the sky.
There was no deafening crash, no thunderous roar. Beneath the thick dust, only a fleeting glimmer of flame shone as the Ashen Giant's breath blew everything away.
There were no more storms or dust, nor any scarred and ravaged earth.
All that remained was a plain stretching hundreds of miles. The land was no longer uneven, and no dust or clouds obscured the sky. In that silent destruction, everything had been burned away.
The earth had collapsed in neat, uniform sections, its cracks like sheer cliffs. The obsidian-like ground was smooth as a mirror, silently reflecting the firelight of the massive fleet and countless monsters battling in the depths of space.
A long while passed before the wind blew in again from afar.
A shadow appeared out of nowhere upon the ground, then tore open. An old man with a broad frame stepped down from within it, one stair at a time.
Behind him, white hair writhed like snakes, braided together and trailing across the ground.
He looked around.
"Late again."
The ruler known as the Minister of Mourning sighed in frustration. Looking around, he sniffed. "A horde from the Sea of Thunder? And explosions? Twice... one was ash, and the other was Current Realm people?
Wait, The Wolf-Skinned is dead too?"
As those pitch-black eyes swept across the empty glassy plain, it was as though everything that had happened stood vividly before him.
The Minister of Mourning reached into a leather pouch, took out a handful of bone ash, and scattered it.
"The Wolf-Skinned."
At his words, a vague outline reappeared amid the rising ashes. The ruler, who should have