He reached for the soul anchor.
It was there. Glowing red against his translucent chest. Pulsing steadily like a heartbeat.
Guiding him.
Nicholas focused on it and felt the pull.
Not a physical pull. But a direction. A sense that if he moved in a specific way, he would be moving toward something.
Toward Lilith.
Nicholas began to walk.
Or float. Or move. It was hard to define motion in a place where space had no meaning.
But he was traveling. Moving through the grey nothing. Following the pull of the soul anchor toward wherever Lilith's soul was being held.
Time was impossible to track.
Nicholas might have been walking for seconds or hours or days. There was no way to tell. No sense of duration. Just the eternal grey and the steady pull of the crystal.
And then....
Something changed.
The grey shifted. Darkened. Became less uniform.
Shapes appeared in the distance.
