The floor was peaceful now, cleared of the creatures that had made it dangerous. Birds sang in the canopy overhead. A stream burbled somewhere in the distance. It looked like the kind of place adventurers would vacation, not fight for their lives.
But the moment Jack materialized, someone got antsy.
The Deathfrost Demon was twenty feet away near a fallen log, but he crossed the distance in a heartbeat that defied normal physics.
His massive axe materialized in his hands as frost exploded across the ground in branching patterns, the temperature dropping thirty degrees in an instant. His blank white eyes were locked not on death, but on the presence that had arrived with him.
Every survival instinct Pho possessed was screaming that a cosmic-level threat had just entered his vicinity, and his body responded with violence that preceded conscious thought.
"Pho," Jack said, his voice carrying a command that made the demon freeze mid-stride. "Sit."
