Kaelen held his breath, his finger hovering over the activation rune of the Resonator. The air on the ridge felt as if it were hardening, turning from intangible gas into something sharp and brittle. Below, the frantic activity of the Jurang’s minions had ceased. The monsters froze in their places, their heads turning in uncanny unison toward the ridge where Kaelen lay hidden.
"It knows," Kaelen realized, a grim smile touching his lips. "It’s not just a machine. It has a sensory range that operates on the same frequency as my own."
The leader of the Jurang drifted slowly from the apex of the structure, its feet barely touching the obsidian-slicked ground. It moved with a terrifyingly calculated elegance, drifting not like a creature of flesh and bone, but like a shadow cast by an unseen
