Then the ground quaked again.
The tremor was so violent even the Vespids wavered midair, wings thrumming in panic. Dust and ash cascaded from the canopy as the earth below split apart with a sound like the world's bones breaking.
From the long fissure rose a serpent the size of a fortress.
Its body stretched for hundreds of meters, scales cracked and leaking black vapor. Each exhale released a miasma that corroded the air itself, turning nearby trees into withered husks within seconds. Its every motion carried a weight that pressed down on the spirit—pressure, deep and suffocating, unmistakably akin to that of an Indigo-grade spiritual creature.
But there was something wrong about it.
The pressure was unstable, fluctuating—like a flame starved of oxygen, flaring violently one second, guttering the next. Kain's jaw tightened. He could feel the difference immediately: the oppressive strength of a creature that should have had a domain, yet lacked the world's acceptance.
