They moved back to the cavern entrance where the air was marginally less hostile.
Emric and Renna cleared a space on the cave floor, sweeping aside ice fragments and loose stone with their boots. Renna kept glancing at the Glacial Core in Holden's hand, her eyes wide.
"That thing is making me trippy. Is it supposed to do that?"
"It's a Rank 3 core," Emric said. "The energy density is high enough to produce visible luminescence. Standard physics."
"Standard physics doesn't apply to monster cores and you know it."
Holden set the Aether-Crucible on the ground between them.
The artifact was deceptively small. A palm-sized basin made of dark metal that absorbed light, carved with thin grooves that pulsed with a faint warmth.
He placed the Glacial Core inside.
The reaction was immediate.
The Crucible hummed. The grooves on its surface lit up, first gold, then shifting to a deep amber as the artifact began breaking down the core.
Then it started shaking.
