Strax dove.
Again.
But now, there was no anger, no haste. Just a silent conviction that clung to the center of his being like invisible claws. The previous explosion had left a deep crater, but it was only the surface skin of what lay beneath the world. Whatever had caused that ritual with draconic blood was not just hidden. It was below. Far below.
He cut through the smoke and dust like a living arrow, descending at an absurd speed. The heat tried to keep up with him, but he left it behind. The edges of the fissure glowed red and gold as he crossed the chasm, the echoes of the explosion still dancing across the walls of the volcano like living memories.
That's when he realized.
This was not just a volcano.
It was an entrance.
The volcanic rock walls did not end in a lake of magma or a pressure chamber as one would expect from a natural structure. They widened, transformed. Ancient runes glowed in the cracks of the rock. Geometric lines spiraled down to an invisible horizon.
