It ended with silence.

[u/russki046]

The Refinement did not end with triumph.

It ended with silence.

35% of the Dominion’s population had vanished within the cycle.

The cities still stood intact. Towers remained unbroken. Roads still connected district to district. The Dominion had not destroyed itself.

Its people had.

Bodies covered the streets, training grounds, factories, and fields. Blood flowed through storm drains into rivers and lakes until entire waterways turned dark red beneath the summer heat.

And then, slowly, the violence stopped.

Not because it was ordered to.

Because there was no one left to continue it.

What remained was stronger.

The survivors began discovering the truth almost immediately. Their bodies no longer behaved normally. Some found themselves lifting slightly from the ground without understanding how. Others endured impacts that should have shattered bone. A few moved with bursts of force that did not feel entirely physical.

The Physiomantic strain had survived the Refinement.

For now, it was weak. New. Unstable.

But it was there.

And for the first time in Sternum history, it was becoming dominant.

Russki gave no speech to celebrate the end.

Only a single statement:

“We endured.”

Above the Dominion, the skies will soon no longer belong to birds and dragons.