Jorghan collapsed the moment the adrenaline faded.

His body simply gave out, the accumulated damage and essence depletion finally overwhelming even his supernatural resilience.

He drove his body and bloodline far beyond their threshold, knowing full well that the consequences would arrive soon enough.

Jorghan didn't know that he could push past the transformation. Although the results were far more astounding, the pain that followed was also equivalent to that.

Though the mana-devouring attitude had accumulated a lot of mana, so the healing was already underway, but how much it would take to repair it was the question.

He fell to his knees first, then forward onto his hands, blood dripping from his nose and mouth onto the sand that had been transformed to glass by his own attacks.

Sigora was there before he hit the ground completely, her arms catching him, cradling his head as his eyes rolled back and consciousness fled.

"Get him inside," she commanded, her voice steady despite the fear coursing through her. "Carefully."

She could see the agonizing expression on his face.

It took four warriors to carry him; his transformed state had left him denser and heavier, the changes not fully reversed despite his appearance returning to something resembling normal. They brought him to Sigora's residence, laying him on the largest bed they could find, and for two weeks he didn't move.

The transformation back to his human form was happening very slowly, as the residual power was still left in.

His breathing was shallow but steady. His heartbeat was slow but regular. His body was working, healing, and processing the incredible amounts of essence he'd absorbed and the massive damage he'd sustained.

But it needed time, more time than any normal recovery would require.

The clans watched and waited.

Word spread across the desert settlements like wildfire.

The Sol'vur heir had faced an Imperial army alone and won. Forty of the empire's abominations were destroyed. Two enhanced commanders defeated. Thousands of soldiers killed. An entire fleet reduced to burning wreckage.

The elves who'd witnessed it firsthand struggled to describe what they'd seen.

How do you explain watching someone transform the desert itself into a weapon? How do you convey the horror and awe of seeing blood magic on a scale that shouldn't exist?

They tried anyway, and with each retelling, Jorghan's legend grew.

Some called him the Blood Emperor.

Others preferred Crimson Death.

A few of the more poetic souls dubbed him the Desert's Wrath.

But most simply called him what he was: the Berserk Monarch's heir, the true inheritor of the Sol'vur bloodline and the proof that the old powers hadn't died but merely slept, waiting for the right moment to awaken.

Thel'endra left the morning after the battle, her Ma'ulankr warriors departing with her. But before she left, she stood over Jorghan's sleeping form for several minutes, her eyes studying his face.

"I was wrong about you," she said quietly, knowing he couldn't hear but needing to say it anyway. "The Ma'ulankr strength I was so proud of? It's nothing compared to what you carry. When you wake, when you're ready, we need to have a talk."

She placed her hand briefly on his forehead, a gesture of respect among her people, then turned and left without looking back.

Her mind, which had held such skepticism about the Sol'vur heir, was no longer filled with doubt. If anything, it held a seed of fear, not of Jorghan specifically, but of what he represented.

Power on that scale, concentrated in a single individual, could reshape the entire realm's political landscape.

The question was what he'd choose to do with it.

*

Inside Sigora's residence, a constant rotation of family maintained watch over Jorghan.

Sigora herself was there most often, sitting beside the bed, occasionally reaching out to check his temperature or adjust the blankets.

Her children, Swana and Sik'ra, took shifts when she needed rest, though Swana was clearly struggling with what she'd witnessed.

"Is he going to be alright?" she asked her mother for perhaps the twentieth time.

"Yes," Sigora answered with more confidence than she felt.

"His body is healing. It just needs time."

Katisana visited frequently, her instincts making her check Jorghan's vital signs even though there was little she could do beyond monitoring.

"His essence pathways are reconstructing themselves," she observed on the third day. "Whatever he did out there, the amount of power he channeled, it damaged his internal structure. But it's repairing stronger than before.

Adapting."

Sarhita came every day, sitting quietly by the bed, sometimes talking to the unconscious Jorghan about mundane things, gossip from the settlements, minor incidents, anything to fill the silence. She needed to talk, needed to process what she'd seen, and talking to him helped even if he couldn't respond.

Scarlett was a mess.

The young woman had barely spoken since the battle ended.

She'd witnessed warfare before, brief skirmishes, and the aftermath of attacks, but nothing like what Jorghan had unleashed.

The scale of destruction, the efficiency of the killing, and the sheer overwhelming violence of it had shaken something fundamental in her worldview.

She had seen Jorghan kill before and watched people die before her, but this was more than what she could handle.

She stayed mostly with Swana, the two of them finding comfort in each other's presence, but she couldn't bring herself to visit Jorghan's bedside. Every time she tried, her hands would start shaking, her breathing would accelerate, and she'd have to retreat before the panic attack fully set in.

Grace was different.

She visited exactly once, standing in the doorway for perhaps thirty seconds, her face unreadable.

She looked at Jorghan's sleeping form, at the family gathered around him, and at the care and concern evident in every gesture.

Then she left without saying a word.

When Swana asked if she was worried about him, Grace's response was flat: "He's survived worse. He'll be fine."

But she didn't visit again; she helped Scarlet and stayed with her. She had somehow come to terms with her position and hoped someday her son would come for her.

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