Chapter 138

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight

All around Connor, thin black columns of smoke curled and tapered off into fine lines of nothingness. Beneath those columns, boiling heat cooked away the top layer of the floor as corrupting energy transformed into matter.

And monsters crafted from nightmare took shape.

Giant bugs, black snakes with dagger teeth, winged scorpions, hairy spider things, tentacled winged things…

There had to be hundreds of them…thousands.

As they took on mass and shape and bumped into each other, they snapped and fought and became entangled with each other. Some died. Others were torn to pieces. Many merged or were absorbed.

The sounds of all of this—vile flesh being torn; unholy things roaring and bleating in agony; new and impossible shapes taking form—were revolting, sickening.

All of the interactions only magnified the sense of corruption, the intrusion of this alien malignancy.

Connor centered himself as he retrieved the scabbard belts.