All the purplish-black aura scattered across the ruined field began to stir.
Riley's eyes narrowed sharply.
The once-wriggling puddles of shadow no longer flailed uselessly. Instead, they surged—converging with alarming speed. Tendrils snaked across the ground, merging with streams pouring down from the skies and rising up from the cracked, desolate earth.
Every fragment of the dark aura was being drawn toward a single point at the far end of the battlefield.
Riley's gaze locked onto it.
In mere seconds, a mass of coiling darkness had accumulated there—growing thicker, denser, more oppressive by the heartbeat.
And then—
It began to rise.
From the ground upward, the swirling shadows stretched and elongated, gradually taking on shape.
First legs.
Then a torso.
Then arms—hunched and trembling with barely contained energy.
And finally—
A head.
