The road beyond the borders felt like stepping into another world. The moment their boots crossed the cracked soil, a heavy weight pressed against their chests, as though the land itself rejected their presence. The sky hung low, a smear of dark crimson and black clouds, lit only by strange violet veins of lightning that crackled without thunder.
Fen, walking ahead, raised his staff. “Keep close. From this point on, your faces will betray you.”
He muttered a string of words in the demon tongue, guttural and sharp. A ripple spread from the tip of his staff, curling around them like a dark mist. One by one, their forms shifted—their skin roughened into the gray-black texture of the Zerith demons, their eyes burning with faint crimson glow. Their scents dulled, their voices thickened.
Emil
