The silence was the worst part.
For three hundred years, the Spire had hummed. It was the heartbeat of the world, a constant sub-bass thrum that vibrated in every stone and every bone.
Now, it was gone.
Kael stood in the Control Dome, breathing heavy. The Prince was slumped in the chair, unconscious.
"It's done," Elric whispered. "You did it."
Boom.
It wasn't an explosion. It was the sound of air rushing into a vacuum.
Above them, the sky turned purple.
Not the orange of dawn, or the grey of the Ash. A deep, bruised purple. The clouds began to swirl, not driven by wind, but by a massive, sucking pressure.
The glass of the dome cracked.
Crack. Crack. Shatter.
Gravity lurched. Elric floated an inch off the ground before crashing back down.
"Look," Kael said, pointing up.
The purple clouds parted.
Something was looking at them.
It was an Eye.
It spanned the horizon. It was the size of a moon, made of cold, dead starlight and hunger. It didn't blink. It didn't focus. It just... existed. And its existence was so heavy that reality began to buckle under the weight.
Down in the city, the screaming started.
People fell to their knees, clutching their heads as the psychic pressure wave hit. Buildings began to groan, stone turning to liquid, glass turning to sand. The laws of physics were being rewritten by a god that didn't understand them.
"A Deep One," Elric whimpered, bleeding from his nose. "It's waking up."
"It's not waking up," Kael said, drawing his sword. "It's trying to get in."
Tendrils of black smoke—solid, oily smoke—began to descend from the sky like roots seeking water. Where they touched the city, matter dissolved into void.
"We have to go," Kael said. "We have to get the Prince to the bunker."
He grabbed the boy. He felt light. Too light.
"We broke the lock," Kael said to the staring Eye.
"Now we have to fight the intruder."