Castian's Astonishment

The platinum line of fire pressed in from the east. By the time the mobile reinforcements reached the edge of Blackpine Fief, their orderly formation suddenly faltered.

The lead warhorse, its face covered by a Holy Silver chamfron, gave a long whinny and reared. The horses behind it grew restless too.

Several Holy Knights hauled on their reins, clamped their knees against their mounts, and dug in their spurs again and again. Horses that would not flinch even when Second Tier Demonic Beasts lunged at their faces now circled anxiously in place.

Castian yanked his reins tight. His own mount snorted uneasily beneath him.

He looked ahead. There was no charging tide of Demonic Beasts, no Dark Races still tearing at the walls.

The wind peeled back a layer of red mist, revealing only a vast stretch of collapsed, blackened ruins still giving off heat.

The three hundred heavily armored Holy Knights behind him had already drawn their swords. Every one of them had prepared for the worst before coming here.

Yet the sight before them left the Church's mobile reinforcements, who had ridden here at full speed, briefly speechless.

The entire outer line of fortifications was gone. Only enormous, overlapping craters remained.

The main blast crater at the center had gouged a whole chunk out of the earth. The surrounding permafrost had melted in the heat, then cooled rapidly in the bitter cold, hardening into a dark red, nearly black crust.

Several iron beams lay half-buried along the crater's edge, twisted out of shape, their surfaces streaked with metal that had melted and solidified again.

When the wind blew, ash swirled up from the crater floor. A few dark red embers still winked among the debris.

Castian sat on his horse, slowly surveying the scorched ground. His right hand