The silence didn't last.
It never did.
Lindarion stood at the edge of the chamber, breath slowing, eyes on the dead floor glyph.
No flicker.
No pulse.
Just light.
Then, he felt it.
A shift in pressure. Not outside. Inside.
Like something exhaled from below the chamber, and the air bent to make space for it.
The glyph didn't light up.
It cracked.
Not a fracture.
An invitation.
Lines split from its core, jagged, asymmetrical, running to the edges of the stone like roots through frostbitten glass.
Lindarion took a single step back.
Then the second pulse came.
No light. No roar.
Just emergence.
The floor shattered.
Not explosively.
Systematically.
Like the room had peeled its skin off.
Six new shapes rose from beneath.
Bigger.
Taller.
Wrong.
Not bone. Not flesh. Not anything natural. Their forms pulsed like they were made of mana condensed into solid agony, limbs shifting, claws extending, heads splitting sideways into nothing that resembled mouths.
