Elias tried to draw a breath. There were no lungs to fill.
He tried to open his eyes. There were no lids to part. The agonizing burn of the mirrored blade sinking into his stomach was gone. The coarse gravel of the Crafter's arena, the suffocating heat of Kikaru's plasma, the harsh red glare of the monitors—all of it had been erased.
Existence had been stripped down to a single, freezing point of pressure.
He was a pulse of blue light.
He hovered inches above a floor of polished obsidian. The dark stone stretched endlessly in every direction, perfectly flat and unbroken. Thick crimson mist drifted over the tiles, curling lazily around massive, jagged spires of pale bone that pierced the starless sky. A low, continuous vibration resonated from the spires, sounding like a thousand voices whispering under deep water.
Footsteps scraped against the obsidian.
