Neo and Snot stayed where they were for a few breaths, both staring at the second floor.
The whole place was built in a wide ring around an open center, but what held their attention wasn't the shape of the floor. It was what was happening along the outer walls.
Soul Beasts were climbing up from below.
Spiders first, their black legs gripping the white stone as they pulled themselves over the edge. Night Walkers followed in bursts, lean bodies hauling themselves upward from gaps in the wall and narrow ledges that shouldn't have held anything larger than a rat. They kept coming from beneath the tower, one after another, not in a mindless rush, but pulled by something.
All of them were fixed on the same point.
At the far end of the floor, a pale brazier burned with a thin white flame.
The thing simply burned, and every Soul Beast on the floor moved toward it as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
