Remnants of the Ash-White Day

The sky gradually brightened and the mist began to disperse under the sunlight, yet the scene before the valley mouth remained a mess. The muddy ground was churned beyond recognition, the traps had almost entirely failed, and toppled wooden stakes lay scattered in disarray with acid-corroded, mottled pits dotting their surfaces. An irritating odor still lingered in the air, refusing to dissipate completely even as the wind blew.

When footsteps stepped into the mud, the soles of the shoes were dragged as if stuck, and the thick sludge contained splashed green traces that had already dried into dark patches. The severed individual remains from last night's slaughter lay not far away with collapsed shells; their internal fluids had long since drained away, leaving only hardened shells and charred, corrosive marks. A few smaller individual remains were scattered outside the first line of defense with stiff postures, as if frozen in their final moment.

Circling to the west to inspect, the stone surface on the slope was found to be scraped with long marks, the surface soil peeled away, and dry traces of acid still remained on the exposed rock deep within. Touching it carefully, it felt rough and uneven, stinging the fingertips slightly. The low-lying area in the southeast was even more pronounced, where nearly all the grass was crushed flat and the mud was pressed into a track nearly two meters wide, as if repeatedly run over by cartwheels.

Standing on the high ground and gazing into the distance, the once iron-firm defense line now appeared so frail and unbearable. What should have been a uniform semicircle resembling an impregnable city wall had now become unrecognizable, turning into a scattered, broken line with several startling gaps in the middle.

These gaps were like fatal wounds to the defense line;