The Blade teams fanned out, moving like they actually knew what they were doing.
Seraphina was doing her whole crisp, quiet hand signal thing.
Gandalf was just grunting at his team.
Our Hilt team leader, some nervous Rank 4 guy whose name I didn't even bother to learn, told us to… uh… hang back and try not to get in the way.
Solid leadership right there.
So we found some rocks to hide behind, feeling exactly like the useless escort quest NPCs we were.
And then we heard it.
It wasn't a roar.
It wasn't a growl.
It was a sound that had absolutely no business existing.
A high-pitched, chittering static that was coming from everywhere at once.
It felt like a thousand insects were crawling around inside my skull.
The sound scraped at my nerves and made my teeth ache.
Well, I guess the Culling had started.
The chittering sound got louder.
It wasn't just noise anymore; it was a pressure.
