The portal hissed open behind him.
Faint blue light shimmered along the ring's surface, pulsing like a heartbeat—slow and quiet, as if afraid of what had just happened on the floor below.
Nikolai stood at the edge, chest still heaving, the taste of copper thick on his tongue.
His arm trembled. The obsidian plating along his forearm had begun to crack. Not from damage, but from pressure—the way a container strains when it holds more than it was built for. Steam coiled from his back, his sweat now tinged with the strange scent of old linen and surgical steel.
He didn't walk forward right away.
He turned, facing the arena's remains.
Where the Flesh Architect had stood
There was nothing now. Not even bone. Just a blackened circle scorched into the floor, the steel melted and warped like plastic as if the dungeon itself had tried to erase the evidence of what it let loose.
Nikolai exhaled.
The breath was long. Steady.
