Darkness.
Boundless darkness.
No sound, no touch, no temperature. Time had lost all meaning here.
Ryan Hart didn't know how long he had been in this void.
He couldn't even be sure if the concept of "self" still applied. He had no body, no five senses, no heartbeat to provide a rhythm. His consciousness was like a candle flame, its shade removed, suspended in an endless emptiness, flickering in an unseen wind.
He tried to shout, but had no throat to vibrate the air.
He tried to move, but had no limbs to carry out the command.
Only thinking remained—the one thing he could still manage to do.
Occasionally, things would surface from the darkness.
Like shattered glass, each shard reflecting a different scene.
Aisha's face, screaming in terror. The cold eyes of that Bloodline Wizard. The searing heat that instantly turned his organs to charcoal as a crimson beam pierced his chest.
And more distant fragments.
