Chapter 135 - The Cold Partition

The air in the sub-level didn't just vibrate; it curdled. The usual hum of the mountain—that deep, comforting thrum of granite and silver—had been replaced by a high-frequency scream that set my teeth on edge and made the fluid in my inner ear feel like it was boiling. Violet static arced between the pillars, crawling across the stone like glowing ivy. It wasn't magic, not in the way the Southern mages understood it. It was raw, uncompiled data, bleeding out of the Obsidian Kernel and into the physical world.