Chapter 10: The Slap of Reality

Chapter 10: The Slap of Reality

Drunk on power, Max could not see what he was doing to Stonehollow. His fists clenched as he savored the crushing pressure building inside him while he devoured all the mana in the surrounding land. The air itself seemed to grow thinner, emptier, as if life were being wrung out of it. So much mana being stripped away was fatal to the crops and livestock.

Countless villagers wept as they watched their final stalks of wheat shrivel into brittle husks, bending lifelessly beneath the storm. The vegetable patches blackened at the roots, and the fruit trees drooped as though their souls had been drained from them.

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