Even though the black sun cast a freezing, sickly light, the ground beneath him told a different story. The earth was charred bone-black, split by deep fissures. From these cracks, plumes of dark, oily smoke coiled upward, drifting toward the sky as tendrils of black blood pulled back into the sun.
Further out, jagged obsidian shards erupted from the plain at violent angles. Their unnaturally smooth, mirror-like surfaces reflected the crimson sky. At their bases, slick, tentacle-like growths swayed and writhed in time with a wind Ryuu could not feel.
But it was the sound that truly clawed at his sanity. The black sun wasn't silent; it vibrated with a low, deafening roar, like the unending hunger of a colossal forge.
'What kind of maddening purgatory is this?' Ryuu thought, his jaw tightening. 'A bleeding sky, writhing horrors, a weeping earth... and a sun that screams. I need to get out of here.'
