Haze

A chill crawled across the back of Clyde's neck.

His instincts screamed.

Without hesitation he activated his [Flight] skill. Lightning still surging around his feet as he launched upward, cloaked in a trail of shadow and sparks. In a heartbeat he rose high above the basin, the crystal terrain shrinking beneath him.

He turned in mid-air and looked down. And then he saw it.

The cracked ground below the violet core was splitting open.

A jagged fissure spread outward in a web of fractures and from within the deepest rift, something moved slowly and subtly but massive.

Then an eye opened.

It blinked once, vertical and slit-pupiled, like a serpent's but the size of it dwarfed the Myrraline formation.

Its shimmered with shifting colors and a dull oily glow leaked from around its edges. Another kind of magic power bled from the crack like smoke.

Clyde narrowed his eyes.