---
Sekhmet's gaze swept the corridor once. Auri stood over Reyan like an executioner with calm eyes. Vera and Vela waited for instruction. Raka's men held the lower fighters contained.
Good. He thought.
Then Sekhmet made the decision that would define how this night ended. He opened his void land.
In the enemy's eyes, the air behind him split.
A vertical seam of darkness appeared like a mouth opening silently, but it did not look like a normal door. It looked like the world had been cut and the cut refused to heal. There was no light inside it. Not black like paint. Black like absence. Cold void air spilled into the corridor, and the flame in the lamps shivered as if it suddenly regretted existing.
Several captured men screamed. Some tried to crawl backward on instinct, palms scraping stone.
They had seen pocket dimensions before. Everyone in Null had heard the stories.
