Chapter 160 - The Watcher Awaits

The ash coils that had begun to rise from the ground at the Riftborn King's command suddenly stopped, their upward movement arrested as if frozen in time itself. The air around them, which had been thick with dimensional instability and the promise of cosmic violence, became unnaturally still. Even the King's multiple voices fell silent mid-sentence, his skeletal form locked in a pose of predatory anticipation that would have been comical if not for the obvious terror that had suddenly overtaken his transformed features.