Chapter 161 - The Forsaken Herald

The Watcher's silver eye had closed, but its presence remained woven into the fabric of reality around them like a cosmic afterimage burned into the sky itself. The absolute stillness that had frozen the Empire of Shadows in reverent submission gradually gave way to a different kind of tension the pregnant pause that precedes moments of universe-altering significance. The crimson heavens had lightened to the color of old silver, and the celestial thrones remained locked in their positions of acknowledgment, as if waiting for permission to resume their eternal conflicts.