The pressure didn't ease. If anything, it kept grinding me deeper into myself, like the realm wanted to fold my bones into powder. My lungs burned. My head throbbed so hard the edges of my vision pulsed in and out. Every breath sounded like I was sucking air through broken glass.
I tried to steady my grip on the sword, but the weight working against me grew heavier by the second. My arm shook. My wrist felt like it was hanging by threads. Still, I held on. Letting go didn't feel like an option.
The mist around me thickened.
At first it only curled across the ground. Then it rose. Swelled. Pulled upward in long, thin columns that stretched into shapes roughly human. Hollow silhouettes. No faces. No expressions. Just outlines carved from shadow, wavering in the dark like smoke trying to pretend it had a body.
Then they moved.
