The visions dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind a silence so dense it felt like a physical pressure crushing down upon Morgan's chest.
The weight of eternity did not dissipate when the images ceased.
It settled directly into the marrow of his bones, an unbearable, suffocating gravity born from the memories of ten thousand forgotten lives.
His lungs burned, straining to pull in cold, subterranean air that suddenly felt too thin and too fragile to sustain the sheer, impossible age of the truth he had just witnessed.
Before him, the ruined temple beneath the Zeregran Ranges remained frozen in time.
The dust motes hanging in the damp chill seemed suspended mid-air, caught in the wake of the murderous tempest that had just torn through Morgan's soul.
And standing among the broken pillars, clad in his dark, unadorned mantle, was the golden-eyed man.
