Crack, crack!
The stone spike did not just break; it unraveled.
At first, it was only fracturing sound that echoed through the cavern like a whisper of something impossible. Then another followed, sharper this time, like a frozen lake splitting under weight. The Sovereign's emerald eyes flickered with a glitching, erratic light. That alone would have been unthinkable moments ago; the Sovereign did not experience doubt, yet its core was suddenly screaming of a variable it could not name.
The rock lance impaling Aegis shuddered violently. Black, oily fissures began to crawl across its surface, spreading like a rot that infected the very concept of stone. The pressure pinning him to the ground wavered, then buckled.
Aegis inhaled.
The sound was wrong. It was not the desperate rasp of a dying man drawing breath through blood-filled lungs. It was a deep, tectonic vacuum, as if the cavern itself had breathed in alongside him, pulling the oxygen and mana out of the air.
