The spire pulsed once—just once—but the pulse traveled through the ground, through the haze, through the air itself, and Cain felt it crawl along the bones in his arms.
Recognition hit him like a punch to the ribs.
Nebula.
Or at least, one of his echoes.
The scattered remains were picking a direction.
Cain's pace sharpened. The terrain responded again, smoothing out, forming a direct path, as though the world itself acknowledged his trajectory.
He hated that.
Each step tightened the pressure around him. The air thickened, not with heat or gravity, but something psychological—the same kind of oppressive ambience one felt standing in the presence of an Archfallen. The sense that something immense was not looking at him, but looking through him.
By the time Cain reached the base of the spire, the sky had darkened to a bruised-indigo spiral. The needle tower stood silent, no entrance, no carving, nothing.
Then it cracked open.
Not like stone splitting—like skin parting.
