Slowly, painfully, he rolled onto his side and pushed himself upright. His left arm hung useless, bone visibly out of alignment. Blood soaked his coat. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt.
He laughed anyway.
"Still standing," he rasped. "That's got to be annoying."
The lesser figure reappeared above the crater, its form more unstable now, edges blurring as if struggling to maintain coherence under the strain of its superior's presence.
"You are being measured," it said. The voice had lost some of its certainty. "And you are failing."
Cain spat blood into the rubble. "Funny. Feels like you're the ones bringing reinforcements."
The response was cut off as the sky collapsed inward.
Not fully—but enough.
A vast portion of the fractured firmament folded down like a lid, dragging clouds, light, and atmosphere with it. The pressure spike flattened what remained of nearby structures. The crater Cain stood in deepened as the ground compacted beneath him.
