The darkness inside the creature's maw was absolute.
Not the simple absence of light, but a void so complete that it seemed to devour the very concept of illumination. Nero's transformed body hung suspended in that blackness, surrounded by crushing pressure and the stench of ancient decay.
The tendrils constricted tighter, their shadowy flesh pressing against him from all sides. They were trying to digest him, to break him down into component parts that could be absorbed and consumed.
But Nero's Yang form had other ideas.
His mouth opened wider, the jaw unhinging like a serpent's. The crimson glow from his eyes cut through the darkness in twin beams of bloody light, illuminating the writhing mass of tendrils that filled the creature's throat. His skin, now black as obsidian, rippled with patterns that weren't quite shadows and weren't quite solid matter—something between the two, something that existed in the spaces where reality grew thin.
