The End of the Northern War

Surtur's mountain-like body had vanished. As far as the eye could see, there was only a newly formed giant snow slope, a hundred meters thick, glinting with a cold blue sheen beneath the dim daylight.

Only at the deepest point of the snow slope did a small patch of dark red light faintly flicker, extremely slowly, like dying embers buried beneath heavy earth—so weak it was almost an illusion.

Had they won...?

All the survivors stared blankly at the snowfield that had buried the calamity, their faces a mixture of incredulous confusion, the weakness of surviving a disaster, and a wavering hope that had yet to settle.

On the ice cliff, Natalie slowly lifted her cheek from the sniper rifle's cheek rest and let out a long plume of white breath she had held in her chest for far too long. Looking at the silent snow slope, she asked in a voice so low the wind nearly scattered it, "Is it... over?"

The answer shattered every last trace of wishful thinking in the next second.

"Rumble—!!!"

From deep within the snow came a low roar, muffled by heavy ice and rock yet still enough to make souls tremble. There was no dying wail in that sound—only endless fury and bone-chilling hatred.

Then, the faint dark red glow suddenly blazed brightly!

The snow began to melt and vaporize across a vast area, sending up scalding white mist that blanketed the sky. Ice and rock exploded in the heat, while countless rapidly spreading black cracks appeared across the snow slope. Dark red lava-light shone through those fissures like eyes opening in hell, growing brighter and closer—

"It... it's coming out!!!"

Before the cry had faded, an earth-shattering boom erupted!

The mountain-like mass of snow and rock was violently flung into the air