Chapter 54 The Despair

The fissure widened with an earsplitting crack, a jagged wound splitting the earth beneath Alex and Mara’s feet. The eerie glow pulsed in time with a rhythmic, almost sentient heartbeat, bathing the chamber in a sickly luminescence. The Sovereign of Despair may have retreated into the shadows, but its presence lingered, thick and oppressive, clinging to the walls like a malevolent specter waiting for the perfect moment to strike once more. Mara gripped Alex’s arm instinctively, her fingers tightening as another tremor shook the ground. The darkness in the fissure roiled and churned, tendrils of mist slithering upward, whispering in tongues too ancient to decipher. Something lurked beyond, something neither of them had yet faced something that watched.