Meanwhile, far away from Kain...
Darkness pressed low over the city, forming a vast, uneven ceiling that pulsed faintly, as though it were alive. Layers of shadow drifted overhead like sluggish clouds, yet no wind stirred them and no sound marked their passage. There was no sun, no moon, no stars—only a dull, pervasive glow seeping from the glowing orbs embedded into the streets below, stretching warped silhouettes across the black stone.
The city sprawled outward in uneven rings from its center, an enormous expanse of structures fused seamlessly into the black stone beneath them. Streets twisted in lazy spirals and sharp, unnatural angles, converging and diverging without any apparent logic. Some buildings resembled towers grown from bone and obsidian, their surfaces ridged and veined like exposed muscle. Others looked almost organic, their walls flexing subtly, as though the city itself were alive and mildly irritated by the creatures crawling across it.
