The torn fabric of the upper sky did not heal after the departure of the storm, but widened into a jagged rift that poured thick, greasy scarlet smoke directly over Sovereign Peak.
Far across the valley of Miller Creek Road, commoners dropped their shovels and stared upward as the daytime sky turned the color of stagnant arterial blood, choked by an overwhelming spiritual pressure that made the pack mules in the transport pens collapse onto their flanks.
From the center of the dimensional tear, the colossal Crimson Eye contracted violently, condensing thousands of square leagues of ambient blood mist into a single, roaring vortex that drilled straight down toward the fractured marble terrace of the inner sect.
CRACK-HISS.
The scarlet column slammed into the flagstones with the force of
