The ground groaned one final, bone-shattering time before falling into an unnatural, oppressive silence. Sage, his boots anchored firmly into the fractured stone of the plaza, felt the fine hairs on his arms stand upright.
As the dust began to settle, drifting away in ghostly plumes, the view before him robbed him of his breath. Suspended in the air, mocking the very laws of gravity, was a titanic, pitch-black structure.
It was a perfect, colossal cube, reminiscent of a puzzle box, yet its scale was architectural, a monolith of dark, obsidian-like material that seemed to drink the light around it. It wasn't static; segments of its surface were in constant, rhythmic motion, sliding, rotating, and clicking into new positions with a sound like grinding tectonic plates.
