The swirling dust lingered in the night wind for a long time.
The pass that had once stretched across the river valley no longer existed.
The mountains on both sides seemed to have been torn apart from within by some immense force, exposing fractured rock faces as rubble and mud cascaded down, completely burying the entire passage.
At the edge of the chaotic ruins, a thick grayish-brown hand lifted a heavy slab of rock. He roughly clawed through the dirt, trying to find something amid the bloodstains and broken stones.
"Garag! General, it's all fallen rocks down here. We can't dig out that human!"
The orc soldier in charge of the search poked his head out from the edge of the deep pit and reported upward.
Redfang General Groot stood on the rubble slope, murderous intent churning in his eyes.
Not long ago, his personal guards, along with an entire squad of Dire Wolf cavalry, had been swallowed by the collapsing mountains on both sides of this pass.
And the culprit behind it all had been just one human.
According to the shaman's observations and deductions, that human mage had stood here at the time, raised his staff toward the upper rock face, and unleashed powerful magic.
"We must find his corpse and cut off his head!"
"Groot, don't waste time."
An orc clad in feathers and white bones stepped forward, his hoarse voice interrupting Groot's thoughts.
"I saw it clearly through the war eagle's eyes." The shaman raised a withered finger and pointed at the mountain above, where a huge section was missing. "After the human cast the spell that triggered the collapse, he could barely maintain his balance. A spell of that scale would have drained all his mana."
The shaman paused, his tone becoming more certain. "And