When Lex came to, there was no forest around him. There was nothing, not even the ground. Instead, there was a deep, circular pit in the shape of a dome, for everything within a mile (1.6 km) of the necklace had been sucked into it.
Lex was not surprised, though. He'd been in a trance, not asleep. He was aware of everything that had happened. Everything within the Gilded Hollow was an extremely valuable resource - everything! He didn't know the exact reason, but he had a few theories.
If the Gilded Hollow truly was the last vestige of the universe known as Pentagal, then there was a chance that it existed in a state of profound compression, with every remaining speck of its being forged into material of astonishing purity and quality.
