The darkness inside the rift did not merely occupy space; it seemed to press against the world around it like a conscious presence, heavy and hungry. Damon felt the air grow denser, as if every breath had to push through an invisible layer of black ice. Even behind Xue Lian, even protected by that woman's absurd presence, his body reacted with an instinctive tension that had nothing to do with courage. It was the oldest reaction of all: the certainty of standing before something that should not be faced.
The kneeling creature slowly raised its arms, and the crystalline plates attached to its body vibrated like broken bells. The faces imprisoned within them began moving more violently, all of them screaming in silence as the fissure behind it widened further and further. There was no light on the other side. No landscape, no depth, no comprehensible shape. Only a thick darkness crossed by pale lines that resembled bones floating beneath black water.
