Finally, after a week of travel filled with cautious movement and playful squabbles, they arrived.
Mount Blanc loomed before them—no longer the serene, snow-veiled giant once whispered of in history books, but a wrathful colossus that scraped at the heavens with fire and fury.
Where once the gentle clouds had embraced its majestic peaks, a sinister transformation had taken place.
Now, the skies were choked with ash, swirling in a chaotic maelstrom of deep crimson and ominous black, resembling a furious tempest conjured by a vengeful deity.
As thunder rumbled ominously beneath the surface, it reverberated through the air like the hollow groan of ancient stones shifting under the weight of unseen forces, accompanied by the fiery hiss of pressurized flame escaping from deep within the earth.
The air itself tasted like iron and smoke. Ash drifted downward in gentle spirals, soft as snow but hot enough to blister skin on contact.
