The Iron Cathedral was no longer a room; it had become a pressurized chamber of absolute-zero mana. Vane's feet were locked into the metal floor. The iron beneath his boots had buckled and fused under the weight of the collision. He was leaning into the spear, his muscles screaming as he poured every ounce of his remaining mana into the star-steel shaft. The star-steel remained whole, a singular line of silver light that refused to bend even as the obsidian-black ice on Isaac's chest absorbed the impact.
Vane's vision was blurring. A thick, metallic scent filled his nose as blood began to leak from his ears. He was at the absolute limit of his Rank 3 mana core. He could see it now: the "Door" Isaac had spoken of. It was not a physical thing, but a conceptual threshold in his mind. It was a gateway that separated the physical laws of the Elite from the mythical laws of the Sentinel.
