The dust in the ruined inner sanctum settled like snow over a graveyard.
The heavy Adamantite doors were shredded, the ancient stone floor was cratered, and the pedestal that had housed the Sword of Heroes for a millennium was nothing but a jagged stump.
From the far wall of the Deep Vault, buried under tons of collapsed rubble, a figure stirred.
"Your Holiness!"
Bishop Malachi, the Pope's most trusted confidant and the head of the Cathedral's internal shadows, sprinted into the ruined antechamber.
He was flanked by a dozen high-ranking Inquisitors, their holy weapons drawn, panic clear in their eyes.
They expected to find a massacre.
They expected to find the leader of the Kingdom of Light broken by the terrorist lapdogs who had infiltrated their most sacred vault.
Instead, the rubble simply... evaporated.
The heavy stone blocks pressing down on the Pope didn't fall away; they turned into harmless white light and drifted into the ceiling.
