The afternoon was eerily quiet, a faint tremor stirred beneath the earth — shaking the trees like distant thunder crackling through stone.
The birds had long since fallen silent and the wind dared not speak.
Then. A crack.
From the heart of the ruined altar, a thin fracture of red lightning split the air with a shriek — the pedestal stood tall in the centre as the ruin began to collapse in on itself.
Then, the rumbling stopped — a deafening roar burst outward as the portal surged to life, ripping open a festering wound in the fabric of space.
And from its swirling maw of crimson and black they rushed out.
Not in handfuls. Not in battalions.
But thousands.
Pouring out like a flood, shrieking and clawing one another in a chaotic frenzy of teeth, wings and limbs. Some were grotesquely bloated while others slithered out like serpents.
