The mountain paths wound treacherously beneath a sky that defied natural law. Shimmering rifts pulsed overhead, bleeding fragments of void energy that twisted the air into nauseating patterns. Reed led his ragtag force through narrow passes where the rock itself seemed to whisper, ancient voices scratching at the edges of sanity.
Three of their fighters had already succumbed to the influence, their minds fracturing under the void's proximity. Reed had ended their suffering personally, driving his blade through each throat with mechanical precision. No time for sentiment. No room for weakness.
"The barrier thins here," Shia observed, her void tendrils probing the air ahead. She no longer attempted to maintain a human form, instead hovering above the ground as a writhing mass of shadow punctuated by those unsettling starfield eyes. "We're close to one of the old breach points."
