Darkness was not the absence of light, but a breathing, moving, watching entity. And Irkalos, despite his silence, was closer than ever to becoming a part of it.
He stood motionless, and the ground beneath him was no longer solid. It pulsed. It breathed. As if something deep within was finally awakening from an age-long slumber.
And Axel, just a few steps away, showed no reaction. His hands were behind his back, his features calm, as if he had been waiting for this very moment since ancient times.
Suddenly… Irkalos heard the voice again.
"I've tasted you," the voice came not as a whisper, but as an internal flood, as if his own mind had become its priest.
"Something unlike them… unlike the dead, unlike the living. You… are something new."
His body stepped back, not from fear, but from a weight that overwhelmed his soul. He saw his fingertips tremble, not from cold, but from the truth: what the Abyss had tasted… was his very soul.
