The wreckage of what he once known sat around him like a nest of all that's come to destroy him. The beautiful baroque architecture built by many years of industrialization brought to mere shadows of what they once were in only a blink of an eye.

He stared into the distance, sword in a quivering, ash-coated hand. The crown on his head no longer held meaning, not when he had nothing to rule; no status, no living lineage. Nothing. What hope is he to have when the gods are so ruthless as to tear everything he loved away, when he'd been so loyal?

His sword fell to the ground, but the clang of the metal wasn't caught by his ear, nor was the footsteps approaching through the rubble.