Chapter 136

The cave pulsed.

It wasn’t just darkness here—it was alive.

The black circle at the center of the chamber throbbed faintly with each heartbeat Marsen still had left, its faint glow crawling along the walls like oil.

Dante’s nostrils flared, the stench of scorched blood and ancient magic thick enough to taste.

Marsen didn’t move at first.

He sat slumped in the corner, those eyes—wrong, red, too bri