"Everything is ready," Nihil said.
He stood alone in a place swallowed by darkness, facing a void that served as one of the deepest prisons imaginable, a place meant to contain only the most dangerous entities. It resembled the prison where Nevia would be held, but only at a glance. This one was different. Older, darker, and woven with far stronger restraints.
"Is that so?"
The voice that answered him was feminine but with darker tone.
Nihil kept his gaze fixed ahead until, little by little, a shape began to emerge from the blackness. It did not step into the light, because there was no light there to step into. It merely became visible, separating itself from the surrounding dark by the slightest degree.
"Yes," he said. "I will soon trigger the Artificial Brain I placed within Amael."
There was the sound of a swift step, or perhaps merely the suggestion of one, and then the figure was suddenly there, close against the dark film-like barrier that divided them.
