Feeling the familiar shifts and seeing the changes, they understood at once. The Rank 4 Spark was using its skill again, shaping another dimension and opening a passage to pull them in.
Edges blurred. Depth lost its measure. The nothing between them and the horizon behaved like pulled cloth gathering into a fist.
This time, there was no Brakhtar to collapse the passage and save them.
Even if he could, by some miracle, manage the same tactic, none of them were sure the Serpent would not use it a 3rd time or a 4th, turning it into a loop that would grind them down, a cycle with only death waiting at the end.
The thought moved through the group like frost, and every will that had stiffened a moment before felt the bite of it.
