The silence that followed Ren's warning did not last.
It couldn't.
The dark energy roaring through Jack's circulatory system was not a localized spell that a sudden act of will could dismiss; it was a torrential, predatory current that had spent the last several minutes systematically consuming his humanity.
His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped beast, each contraction pumping thick, blackened mana into his muscles until his skin burned with a terrifying, hyper-oxygenated heat.
The voice of the Shattered King had withdrawn back into the abyssal depths of his subconscious, but the door it had kicked open remained unlatched.
The residual high of the Madness form, paired with the staggering psychological weight of the ancestor's revelations, left Jack's mind fractured, detached from reality, and feral.
