The ash didn't settle.
It crawled.
Slowly. Methodically.
Like it was alive.
Jin tightened his grip on the staff, watching as the scattered remains of the Face of Self-Destruction began to slither across the cracked ground — the blackened debris squirming like maggots.
It piled together, twisting and compressing, sinew and rotted tissue weaving itself into a shifting mass.
Bones splintered and reformed.
Flesh bubbled and curdled, constantly collapsing and rebuilding.
The smell hit them like a sledgehammer.
Thick. Vile. Suffocating.
Joon gagged, stumbling back.
"Oh my god," he choked. "What the hell is that?"
Seul doubled over, coughing, her hand over her mouth.
"It's like… like a rotting corpse," she rasped. "But worse."
Jin wiped his mouth, his stomach churning.
It smelled like decay — but amplified.
Like every dead thing in the world had been compressed into a single, toxic stench.