Hide was at ease.
For the first time since the day he had awakened in that cold hospital room in Area 17, the crushing weight in Hide's chest was gone. The smell of blood, the heat of flames, and the endless, maddening whispers in the back of his skull had vanished into a weightless calm.
Hide slowly opened his eyes and realized that he was standing on the endless promenade of midnight-black obsidian in the Greater Realm.
All around him, pillars of golden light rose into a peaceful expanse of swirling nebulae, where miniature suns and galaxies drifted like fireflies in the twilight.
Hide looked down at his hands. They were whole and unscarred, yet faintly translucent, glowing with a soft light. He had no physical body left. He was only a soul now.
At the far end of the promenade, atop the nine tiers of starlight steps, Lord Wartz rose from his cosmic crystal throne.
