Evan had hoped he could draw out a bit of that life energy without having to physically access the place, something that would have saved him from unnecessary trouble.
But it seemed he had underestimated the place.
'Oh come on, give me a break already.'
He felt an enormous weight descend upon him, or rather, upon his soul. It was suffocating, pressing down so heavily that the air left his lungs before he even realized it was happening. Not a physical pressure. Something deeper than that, something that bypassed the body entirely and went straight for whatever lay beneath it.
From the trembling castle, a violet mist began to rise. It swirled and coiled upward in slow, deliberate spirals, and just as he found himself wondering what it was, it took shape, a creature, enormous and formless at its edges, with two vast hollow voids where eyes should have been, staring directly at him across whatever distance separated them.
