The voice belonged to a tall figure draped in a heavy, tattered cloak. The skull mask, engraved with twin serpents across the forehead, glinted coldly in the fading light of Ghlizan's green sun.
Tolkas stood completely still, his boots resting inches from the pool of blood expanding beneath Noor's shattered body. He stared down at the boy, observing the slow, ragged rise and fall of his ruined chest. The sheer magnitude of the destruction surrounding them was staggering. The earth was cratered and scorched, the air thick with the acrid stench of ozone, burnt flesh, and vaporized metal. General Hugo, the vaunted Commander of the Third Galactic Army, was nothing more than a memory scattered in the wind, broken by the mind of a vagabond from a dead world.
"Humanity," Tolkas muttered, his voice a low, mechanical rasp distorted by the mask. "A fragile species, entirely driven by the volatile whims of emotion. You burn your own bodies to ash just to see your enemies catch fire."
