The physical world faded into a deafening, rushing roar of static.
Elder Marcus’s chanting echoed briefly, sounding like a voice speaking underwater, before it was completely violently severed. The heavy scent of winter roses in the Moonstone Sanctuary vanished. The agonizing cold of Elara’s skin beneath Valerius’s hands dissolved into absolute, terrifying nothingness.
Valerius opened his eyes.
He was no longer lying on the glowing altar in the Winter Citadel. He was standing in a boundless, suffocating expanse of pure, impenetrable blackness. There was no sky, no ground, and no horizon. The silence here was so absolute it felt like a physical pressure crushing against his eardrums. It was a sensory deprivation chamber built of pure trauma.
The Void.
Valerius looked down at his h
