The stillness that followed the Sleeper's fall was deceptive—too complete, too unnatural. Blood still steamed faintly on the cold stone floor, coiling upward in thin threads like incense smoke, but already the heat of the battle had begun to leech from the room, leaving behind a dead, humming quiet.
Then, like the rip of flesh or the snap of an unseen thread, a disturbance cut through the silence. The space between them split—not physically, but perceptibly—and the air itself ignited with ancient language. A notification emerged not on a display or within their HUDs, but in open space, as if the world itself had decided to speak. The runes burned crimson, suspended in midair with a dreadful stillness, each one jagged and carved as though etched in bone.
