The routine continued.
They would enter the rift, kill the monster, absorb the core and search through whatever alien world they appeared in until they found the next one.
At some point, Damon lost track of how many worlds they had crossed.
Alien skies blurred together into fragmented memories.
Crimson deserts where the sand moved against the wind as if it had somewhere to be.
Endless black oceans with no shore in any direction, the water perfectly still and perfectly wrong.
Forests made of crystal that rang faintly when the wind passed through them, the sound somewhere between music and warning.
Cities long since reduced to ruins beneath the weight of uncontrolled mana, their streets still laid out in the careful geometry of civilisations that had believed they had time, their buildings collapsed inward rather than outward.
